THE  DIVINE  RIGHT 
OF  MISSIONS 


HENRY  C.  MABIE 


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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


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Purchased   by  the   Hamill   Missionary   Fund. 


BV  2060 

.M2 

1908 

Mabie,  H 

enr 

y  Clay, 

1847- 

1918. 

The  divine 

right  of  missions 

THE 

Divine  Right 

Of  Missions 


Or,  CHRISTIANITY  THE  WORLD- 
RELIGION  AND  THE  RIGHT  OF 
THE  CHURCH  TO  PROPAGATE  IT 

in  Comparatitje  3^elig:ion 


By 
HENRY  G.  MABIE 


Philadelphia 

Boston  Chicago  Atlanta 

New  York       St.  Louis  Dallas 


Copyright  1908  by  the 
American  Baptist  Publication  Socikty 

Published  May,  1908 


3from  tbe  Sedet^'B  own  ffircsa 


preface 

This  essay  was  originally  prepared  in  two 
parts :  the  former  part  for  the  Congress  of 
Arts  and  Sciences  of  the  St.  Louis  Exposi- 
tion in  1904.  That  paper  was  entitled, 
''  Elements  in  Christianity  which  Adapt 
it  to  be  the  Universal  and  Absolute  Relig- 
ion." The  latter  part  was  an  article  in  a 
symposium  on  foreign  missions,  which  ap- 
peared in  the  "  American  Journal  of  The- 
ology," Chicago,  in  1907,  in  answer  to  the 
question,  "  Has  Christianity  the  Moral 
Right  to  Supplant  the  Ethnic  Faiths  ?  "  By 
the  kind  favor  of  the  editors  I  have  permis- 
sion to  use  the  articles,  rewrought  in  this 
form  for  a  wider  use. 

These  two  studies  in  the  mind  of  the 
writer  were  really  one  study,  the  latter 
growing  out  of  the  former,  though  origi- 
nally   presented    in    different    connections. 

[3] 


W IPtetace 

They  belong  together.  Each  finds  a  larger 
completeness  in  the  other.  They  are  there- 
fore with  slight  reconstruction  and  some  ad- 
ditional matter  here  combined  as  one  dis- 
cussion, and  offered  as  a  brief  apologetic 
for  the  legitimacy  of  the  extension  of  Chris- 
tianity into  all  lands — a  matter  which  in  one 
form  or  another  in  our  time  is  peculiarly 
engrossing  the  public  mind. 

That  the  essay  may  help  to  commend  that 
enterprise  which  filled  the  heart  and  was 
last  on  the  lips  of  the  divine  Master  prior 
to  the  Ascension,  is  the  prayer  of  the  author. 

Boston,  April  i,   1908.  H.  C.  M. 


Contente 


PART   I 

Page 

Values  in  all  Religions 8 

Preliminary  Considerations ii 

The  Religion  of  Human  Oneness 13 

The  Religion  of  a  Redeeming  God 17 

The  Survival  of  the  Unfit 24 

Emphasis  on  Loyalty  to  Light 28 

Christianity  not  Competitive 30 

Such  Faith  Divinely  Attested 35 

The  Operation  of  Grace  Not  Conterminous 

With  Formal  Revelation z"? 

An  Aboriginal  Prophet 38 

The  Muhsos  and  their  Traditions 40 

Composite  Elements  in  Faith 42 

The  Religion  of  a  Person 46 

The  Word  or  Ideal  in  the  Heart 48 

In  What  Sense  God  is  Immanent 50 

Christ  the  Object  of  His  Religion 53 

Adequate  Authority  in   Religion 57 

A  Doctrine  of  Providence 59 

Every  Man's  Life  a  Plan  of  God 67 

Aims  at  the  Godlike  in  Character 70 

[5] 


[6]  Contents 


PART   II 

Page 

Causes  of  the  Questioning 74 

Misleading  Assumptions 76 

Ethnic  Faiths  not  Co-ordinate  with  Chris- 
tianity      ^y 

Abuse  of  the  Historical  Method 78 

A    Gospel   of    Nature    Antecedent    to    All 

Religious  Cults    80 

Ethnic  Faiths  Perversions  of  the  Primitive 

Gospel    81 

Christian  Missions  More  than  Legitimate  85 

Missions   Misplace   Nothing   Worthy 87 

False  Notions  of  Rights 91 

Displacement  Not  Violence 93 

A  Deep  Imperative  in  Missions 96 

Striking  Testimonies 97 

The  Final  Question 100 

Christianity  Seeks  no  Conquest  of  Force.  .  .102 

Political    Embarrassments 104 

The  Benign  Purpose  of  Missions 106 

Recapitulation    108 

Moral  Transfiguration  the  Ideal 109 

Appendix  113 


The  Divine  Right  Of 
Missions 


part  II 

Cbristtanttp  tbe  TKIlotlb 
IReliaion 

Is  Christianity  the  world  religion?  The 
answer  to  that  question  will  be  the  answer 
to  many  others.  This  is  a  day  of  wide  and 
varied  study  of  comparative  religion,  a  mat- 
ter broad  as  mankind,  enduring  as  time, 
and  profound  as  the  needs  of  man.  The 
subject  is  native  to  every  country,  inwoven 
in  every  epoch  of  history,  and  connected 
with  every  type  of  thought.  "  Religion  is 
the  one  elemental  and  eternal  thing  in 
man  " ;  indeed,  man  has  been  defined  as  "  an 
animate  being  with  religion." 

[7] 


[8]        Ubc  mvinc  IRigbt 

Vain  would  be  an  attempt  in  this  essay  to 

deal  with  more  than  aspects  of  the  broad 

theme.      It   is    ever    wise   to 
Values 
tn  all         recognize  elements  of  truth  in 

any  phase  of  religion  in  what- 
soever form  the  religious  instinct  has  ex- 
pressed itself,  or  from  whatever  source  the 
truth  may  have  come.^  Every  form  of  re- 
ligion, even  the  crudest  fetichism,  gives  ut- 
terance to  some  deep  hunger  of  the  soul,  and 
so  hints  a  thought  of  God.  Every  religion 
has  an  element  of  value,  and  its  phenomena 
deserve  to  be  carefully  registered  and  pon- 
dered; for  example,  animism  even  at  its 
lowest  holds  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  a 
human  spirit,  in  the  antagonism  of  spirits 
good  and  bad,  in  the  possibility  of  some  sort 
of  communion  of  spirits,  and  the  future 
life  of  spirits.  The  savage  idolater  may  not 
always  worship  the  symbol  before  which  he 

^  Doubtless  many  of  those  truer  elements  which  are 
found  in  the  ethnic  religions  are  survivals  of  a  primitive 
but  lost  revelation.  For  example,  an  ancient  representa- 
tion of  Vishnu  in  Hinduism  presented  a  figure  with  a 
serpent  coiled  about  it,  but  with  the  serpent's  head  beneath 
Vishnu's  heel.  Can  there  be  any  doubt  of  the  biblical 
origin  of  that  conception? 


of  fliltggiong [9] 

bows.  He  may  simply  try  to  realize  and 
localize  the  spirit  which  he  fears.  The  rude 
African  who  would  not  complete  a  bargain 
with  the  European  trader  until  he  had  time 
to  go  and  bring  his  fetich  which  he  had  for- 
gotten, is  far  more  to  be  commended  than 
the  modern  nominal  Christian  who  essays 
to  conduct  his  business  apart  from  his  pro- 
fession of  Christ;  nay,  the  African,  in  loy- 
alty to  his  untutored  conscience,  reads  a 
needed  lesson  to  all  such  as  have  forgotten 
that  God  has  the  most  intimate  relation  to 
all  business,  including  one's  share  in  re- 
sponsibility for  corporate  acts,  be  they  good 
or  bad. 

In  the  Rig- Veda  of  the  Hindus  are  found 
evidences  of  the  sovereignty  and  omnipres- 
ence of  the  Deity,  and  the  ancient  religion 
records  many  a  cry  after  immortality.  Brah- 
manism  with  all  its  grossness  is  in  some  re- 
spects at  least  a  non-materialistic  religion. 
It  seeks  to  fit  the  spirit  by  endless  transmi- 
grations for  a  future  life.  Buddhism  repre- 
sents a  half-truth,  viz.,  that  to  find  blessed- 


[lo] trbe  IDtx>tne  TRtgbt 

ness  the  soul  must  lose  its  life.  Its  funda- 
mental defect  is  that  unlike  Christianity,  it 
does  not  show  how  through  losing  its  sinful 
self-life,  it  may  find  its  diviner  life  in  Christ. 
And  Buddhism  has  its  Kwan  Yin,  who  some 
think  is  a  survival  although  in  a  grotesque 
form  of  early  traditions  of  the  Christ,  and 
even  of  the  Logos-doctrine  of  St.  John. 
At  all  events  Kwan  Yin  is  a  sort  of  idealiza- 
tion of  the  divine  mercy  such  as  was  not 
suspected  a  generation  ago  as  existing  in 
heathen  literature  or  history. 

Confucianism  deals  nobly  with  the  man- 
ward  duties  embraced  in  the  second  table 
of  the  Mosaic  law.  It  teaches  the  reform 
of  personal  life,  some  sort  of  regulation  of 
the  family,  and  the  correction  of  certain 
social  and  political  abuses.  Of  course  it  is 
agnostic  as  to  God,  and  yet  in  the  very 
effort  to  escape  God  it  substitutes  nature 
and  ancestor-worship. 

The  Zendavesta  entertains  a  dualism  of 
principles  embracing  the  conflict  between 
good  and  evil,  but  hoping  for  ultimate  con- 


ot  miggtong [ii] 

quest  of  the  evil  by  the  good.  But  each  of 
these  systems  has  disastrously  failed  to 
morally  elevate  the  masses  of  the  people  who 
have  been  its  adherents,  even  after  many 
centuries  of  trial.  And  that  some  of  these 
systems  have  absolutely  corrupted  rather 
than  elevated  the  peoples  who  have  been 
under  their  influence  is  the  verdict  of 
thoughtful  students  of  these  religions  in 
many  lands.  There  are,  to  say  the  least,  fatal 
defects  in  them  all,  defects  which  caricature 
the  Deity,  grossly  debase  their  subjects,  and 
in  other  ways  render  them  insufficient  to 
meet  the  deeper  needs  of  man,  while  Chris- 
tianity alone  embraces  all  the  good  found  in 
these  various  systems,  with  none  of  their 
evils. 

What  I  present  in  the  first  part  of  this 
discussion  is  a  study  preliminary  to  the  jus- 
tification of  Christian  missions. 
For.  as  Mr.  Balfour  says  of  ^S^rSl 
theology,  so  may  it  be  said  of 
missions,    that    "  the    decisive    battles    are 
fought  beyond  its  frontiers."    It  is  not  over 


^i 


M Ubc  Divine  IRtgbt 

matters  purely  missionary  that  the  rights 
of  missions  are  lost  or  won.  The  judgments 
we  form  upon  the  special  problems  of  mis- 
sions are  commonly  settled  for  us  by  our 
prepossessions — by  our  general  mode  of 
looking  at  Christianity  itself.  So  in  our  talk 
about  missions,  to  use  a  phrase  of  Emer- 
son's, *'  we  say  what  we  ought  to  say," 
according  as  we  are  Christian,  modo-Chris- 
tian,  or  anti-Christian.  At  bottom,  the  prob- 
lem of  Christian  missions  is  only  the  prob- 
lem of  the  extension  of  Christianity.  How 
aggressively,  how  discreetly,  or  in  what 
forms  we  are  to  do  it,  are  secondary  matters. 
The  human  methods  whereby  Christianity 
is  extended  anywhere,  always  with  more  or 
less  variation  and  imperfectness,  are  the 
methods  of  missions. 

My  present  object  is  to  point  out  in  Chris- 
tianity those  characteristics  which  constitu- 
tionally and  reasonably  commend  it  to  uni- 
versal trial,  and  therefore  to  universal  and 
aggressive  propagation. 

By  Christianity,  I  mean  of  course  Chris- 


of  mitggtong [13] 

tianity  as  it  is  in  itself,  as  it  came  uncor- 
rupted  from  the  hand  of  its  author;  Chris- 
tianity as  separated  from  all  those  perver- 
sions and  exaggerations  which  have  become 
superimposed  upon  it  through  the  igno- 
rance, narrowness,  or  perversity  of  its  ad- 
herents. I  mean  Christianity  in  its  irredu- 
cible minimum.  For  such  a  Christianity  we 
must  go  back  of  all  historic  forms,  back  of 
all  existing  creedal  statements,  to  the  apos- 
tolic mind  in  revelation  itself. 

We  now  turn  to  an  examination  into 
those  elements  which  adapt  it  to  hold  the 
controlling  place  which  we  claim  for  it,  as 
the  true  universal  and  absolute  religion. 

The  first  characteristic  we  note  is  the  em- 
phasis which  Christianity  puts  upon  the  es- 
sential oneness  of  man.     The 

Ube  1Relig(on 

account  of  man's  creation  in      ofiHuman 
^  .         .....  .  ©nenesa 

Genesis,   the   implications   in- 
volved in  the  act  of  the  dispersion  at  Babel, 
the  twofold  Adamic  race  headship  of  man- 
kind, the  insistence  on  the  duty  of  mutual 
love  among  all  men,  and  the  goal  toward 


[i4]  Ube  Wivinc  IRtgbt 

which  renewed  humanity  moves  in  the  glori- 
fied civic  unity  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  all 
testify  to  the  divine  conception  of  man  as 
one.  That  this  has  been  only  partially  be- 
lieved and  accepted  is  sadly  true.  Since  the 
first  act  of  unbelief,  logically  resulting  in 
the  slaying  of  Abel  by  Cain  his  brother, 
schism  and  strife  have  characterized  the 
long  story  of  man's  relation  to  man.  The 
tyranny  of  the  elder  over  the  younger,  of  the 
strong  over  the  weak,  of  kings  over  sub- 
jects, and  of  caste  over  caste,  has  disas- 
trously prevailed  until  this  hour,  and  is  at 
the  root  of  the  wars  and  woes  of  society. 

The  great  epochal  reforms  among  men 
have  always  turned  upon  some  aspect  of 
man's  brotherly  duty  to  his  fellow.  The 
passing  of  the  feudal  system,  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Great  Charter  of  England,  the 
Reformation  under  Luther,  the  rise  of  the 
American  Republic,  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
and  the  freeing  of  the  Western  Hemisphere 
from  medieval  intolerance  and  bigotry,  all 
were  grounded  in  a  return  toward  the  Bible 


ot  nQtgglong  [15] 

conception  of  the  oneness  of  man.  Jesus 
Christ  set  forth  this  deep  oneness  in  this 
fashion :  The  Herodians  and  Pharisees  had 
combined  in  a  plot  to  ensnare  him.  They 
approached  the  Master  with  the  subtle  flat- 
tery :  "  Teacher,  we  know  that  thou  art 
true,  and  teachest  the  way  of  God  in  truth, 
and  carest  not  for  any  one;  for  thou  re- 
gardest  not  the  person  of  men.  Tell  us 
therefore.  What  thinkest  thou?  Is  it  law- 
ful to  give  tribute  unto  Caesar,  or  not  ? " 
(Matt.  22  :  16,  17.)  In  his  answer  to  this 
cunning  flattery  Christ  seized  upon  the  in- 
itial suggestion :  "  Thou  regardest  not  the 
person  of  men,"  literally,  "  Thou  lookest  not 
into  the  face  of  men."  And  so  he  replied: 
"  Shew  me  the  tribute  money  " — the  Roman 
denarius  appointed  for  the  tax.  This  coin 
had  on  its  one  side  the  face  of  Tiberius  Cae- 
sar, suggestive  of  civic  responsibility;  and 
on  the  obverse  side  the  figure  of  a  priest, 
suggesting  religious  relations.  Looking 
then  full  upon  the  face  of  Caesar,  Jesus  said : 
"  You  tell  me  I  do  not  look  upon  the  face 


[i6]      Ubc  mvinc  IRlflbt 

of  men.  Whose  face  is  this  upon  which  I 
am  now  looking,  and  the  superscription 
whose  ?  "  They  say  unto  him,  *'  Caesar's." 
Then  said  Jesus :  "  Render  therefore  unto 
Caesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's  " — the 
things  which  have  Caesar's  imprint  on  them, 
"  and  unto  God  the  things  which  are  God's  " 
— the  things  which  have  his  imprint  on 
them  (ver.  21).  Thus  Christ  looked  upon 
man's  face,  not  superficially,  not  one- 
sidedly,  as  did  both  the  Herodians  and  the 
Pharisees:  he  pierced  to  the  deep,  divine, 
composite  pattern  for  man;  he  looked  not 
upon  the  mere  accidents  of  color  or  race  or 
artificial  station  by  which  we  are  wont  to 
gauge  and  value  men;  he  looked  to  man's 
fundamental  constitution,  and  saw  him  as 
his  Father  saw  him,  not  as  Teuton,  Mon- 
golian, African,  or  Saxon ;  but  man  as  man, 
man  as  the  offspring  of  God,  man  as  the 
subject  of  eternal  redemption.  Looking 
upon  the  face  of  man  in  such  sense,  Jesus 
contemplated  the  reminting  of  the  coin,  so 
that  the  clearness  of  the  original  image  de- 


ot  mtssions  [17] 

faced  by  sin  might  be  restored.  Thus  Jesus 
viewed  man  in  his  integral,  ideal,  potential 
completeness ;  and  thus  we  are  slowly  learn- 
ing to  view  him.  Thus  all  reform  must 
view  him  if  it  accomplishes  its  mission. 

At  this  point  then,  Christianity  as  cher- 
ishing the  highest  hope  conceivable  respect- 
ing the  reuniting  of  all  social  and  political 
schisms  of  men  into  one  society  of  brothers 
— a  communion  of  saints,  something  far 
deeper  than  a  mere  "  federation  of  man  " — 
has  in  it  the  highest  claim  to  universal  ac- 
ceptance. 

But  again,  Christianity  is  adapted  to  be- 
come the  final  religion  through  the  accent 
it  places  upon  the  redemptive 

principle  in  its  idea  of  God.  of  a 

^  ,  ...  ,  ,     .     1Re6ecming  (5o& 

Other    religions    have    their 

idea  of  deity  as  representing  power,  intelli- 
gence, will,  moral  character,  and  judgment; 
but  Christianity  alone  has  at  the  very  heart 
of  its  conception  of  Deity  the  principle  and 
potency  of  recovery  from  moral  evil. 

The  Bible,  indeed,  on  its  first  pages  defi- 

B 


[i8]  Ube  mvinc  IRtQbt 

nitely  records  the  sin  and  fall  of  man,  how- 
ever that  fall  may  be  construed;  and 
straight  through  to  the  end  it  accentuates 
the  sad  reality.  Even  without  a  Bible,  men 
of  all  times  and  races  are  aware  of  their  sad 
condition  in  this  respect.  Let  men  philoso- 
phize as  they  may  to  explain  away  sin,  yet 
after  all  they  recognize  at  least  "  a  con- 
tinuous abnormality  "  in  the  life  of  man. 
At  the  best  man's  life  is  "  an  ever  not-quite," 
a  falling  short,  a  missing  of  the  mark. 
Christianity,  however,  presents  this  un- 
paralleled characteristic  that,  while  frankly 
recognizing  the  mystery  of  man's  sin,  it  yet 
holds  out  hope  of  recovery  from  it,  and 
offers  a  method  of  God  to  accompHsh  it. 

This  purpose  to  redeem  is  set  forth  in  the 
Bible  as  anterior  to  the  purpose  even  to 
create,  and  to  permit  the  fall.  Had  it  not 
been  so,  the  risk  of  the  fall  would  not  have 
been  incurred.  The  atonement  is  never  to 
be  thought  of  as  an  after-thought;  it  is  al- 
ways in  revelation  God's  forethought,  in 
which  all  his  relations  to  a  race  of  created 


ot  nQtsstong       [19] 

men  started ;  it  is  the  ground  purpose  of  the 
universe.  The  sacrificed  Christ  is  ever  "  the 
Lamb  foreknown  (as  slain)  from  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world  "    (Rev.  13  :  8). 

The  Creator  himself  from  the  beginning 
purposed  to  become  potentially  responsible 
for  man's  foreseen  sin,  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  possible  his  glorious  recovery  from  it, 
and  his  permanent  establishment  in  positive 
hoHness.  That  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
"  original  sin  "  is  indeed  true.  But  we  are 
coming  to  see  that,  even  back  of  the  incip- 
ient sin,  God  provided  what  may  be  called 
an  "  original  grace  "  also,  a  grace  inchoate 
indeed,  until  man  by  his  own  free  will 
should  respond  to  it  and  make  it  his  own, 
but  still  an  original  provision,  adequate  to 
more  than  cancel  the  effects  of  original  sin. 
The  fathers  used  to  maintain  the  doctrine  of 
*'  total  depravity,"  and  a  most  misunder- 
stood and  even  misleading  expression  it  has 
ever  been.  There  is  certainly  a  sense  in 
which  man  through  sin  has  fallen  into  a  sad 
bias  toward  evil.     His  power  for  good  has 


[2o]  Ubc  Wivinc  IRtgbt 

been  blighted  at  the  root ;  there  is  "  a  black- 
drop  in  the  blood  " ;  and  this  is  transmissible 
in  heredity.  Now,  however,  in  the  light  of  a 
better  understanding  of  Christ  as  the  eternal 
Logos,  and  his  relation  from-ever-of-old  to 
our  humanity,  we  are  coming  to  see  that  if 
there  was  in  some  sense  a  deep  racial  "  de- 
pravity," this  is  not  the  whole  fact.  There 
is  also  revealed  in  the  Scriptures  in  close 
relation  to  it,  nay,  over  against  it,  a  racial 
inchoate  redemption  as  well.  There  is 
stored  up  in  Christ's  person  and  work,  as 
potential  for  us  a  redemption  deeper  down 
at  root  than  the  acknowledged  depravity. 
There  is  in  Christ  a  potential  new  heredity 
in  grace,  an  heredity  that  actually  goes  into 
effect  for  all  who  die  in  infancy  or  in  in- 
fantine conditions,  like  the  feeble-minded 
and  many  of  the  heathen,  and  which  would 
also  become  effective  in  all  others  were  it 
not  that  by  an  act  of  evil  self-will  this  poten- 
tiality is  repudiated.  This  is  most  certainly 
implied  in  the  teaching  of  Paul  in  the  fifth 
chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.    The 


of  flniggtong  [21] 

redemption  there  spoken  of  is  potentially 
racial  as  well  as  individual.  In  Paul's  teach- 
ing two  Adams  are  set  forth,  and  the  first 
Adam  in  whom  the  race  went  down  is  rep- 
resented as  a  mere  figure,  rt;;roc  (type),  or 
shadow  of  the  great  reality,  the  coming  sec- 
ond Adam  in  whom  the  race  was  to  have 
"  more  than  "  a  recovery  from  sin  (Rom.  5  : 
14).  Five  times  in  the  course  of  the  argu- 
ment in  the  context,  redemption  through 
the  second  Adam  is  declared  to  be  "  much 
more  "  than  a  restoration  to  the  rudimental 
state  of  the  unf alien  first  Adam  (Rom.  5  : 
9,  10,  15,  17,  20).  The  emphasis  conveyed  in 
these  "  much  mores,"  the  accumulating 
ever-blessed  promise  of  them,  as  indicating- 
how  much  deeper  the  possibilities  of  the 
new  heredity  of  grace  are  than  the  old  he- 
redity of  evil,  has  far  too  long  been  over- 
looked or  ignored  in  evangelical  thought 
and  teaching.  "  Where  sin  abounded,  grace 
did  abound  more  exceedingly  "  (Rom.  5  : 
20,  A.  S.V.). 
Such  grace  is  exclusively  a  conception  of 


[2  2] XTbe  BMnc  IRlGbt 

the  Christian  Scriptures,  and  men  who  are 
destitute  of  the  Bible,  or  who  reject  it,  are 
wholly  without  any  such  assurance  in  Deity. 
The  utmost  the  pagan  mind  can  do  is  to 
cherish  the  hope  that  there  may  be  some- 
where, although  as  yet  unknown,  some  such 
being  as  we  have  described,  some  Redeem- 
er. Many  a  heathen  who  has  never  had  any 
satisfactory  assurance  that  there  is  a  God 
of  mercy  knows  from  the  hunger  of  his  own 
heart  that  "  there  ought  to  be  such  a  God," 
as  a  pagan  Chinese  once  remarked  on  hear- 
ing described  for  the  first  time  the  love  of 
God  in  Jesus  Christ. 

As  opposed  to  this,  how  hopeless  and 
cruel  are  all  ideas  of  God  to  which  we  are 
shut  up  by  the  mere  agnostic  ideas  of  the 
day.  In  the  bald  Darwinian  doctrine  of  "  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,"  e.  g.,  what  hope  is 
there  for  the  unfit  of  our  race  ?  Yet  the  un- 
fit are  in  the  majority.  It  is  the  nine-tenths 
instead  of  the  one-tenth  that  are  submerged. 
It  is  the  glory  of  the  Christian  religion  that 
**  the  Son  of  man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save 


ot  nuiggtong [23] 

that  which  was  lost"  (Luke  19  :  10).  It 
is  idle  to  talk  of  mercy  in  the  Bible  sense 
apart  from  the  Bible  idea  of  the  redeeming 
God.  Men  who  shut  themselves  up  to  the 
cold  logic  of  unaided  philosophy  cannot  en- 
tertain mercy  for  themselves  or  others. 
Said  the  late  Cecil  Rhodes  in  his  last  hours : 
"  So  much  to  be  done,  and  yet  so  little  ac- 
complished." And  can  one  wonder  that  so 
despairing  a  note  was  upon  his  lips  when  the 
first  and  last  article  of  his  creed  is  said  to 
have  been  this :  '*  I  believe  in  Force  Al- 
mighty, the  ruler  of  the  universe,  working 
scientifically,  through  natural  selection,  to 
bring  about  the  survival  of  the  fittest  and  the 
elimination  of  the  unfittest  ?  " 

Such  a  one  in  the  moral  school  has  not  ad- 
vanced as  far  as  the  poor  Chinese  above  re- 
ferred to,  who  believed  ''  there  ought  to  be 
such  a  God !  "  With  all  his  colossal  power 
Cecil  Rhodes  had  not  yet  got  into  the  class 
of  that  rare  disciple  of  nature,  Helen  Keller, 
who,  when  Bishop  Brooks  was  giving  her 
the  first  definitive  lesson  about  God,  is  said 


[24]      Ubc  wmnc  TRtQbt 

to  have  responded,  with  a  face  aglow  with 
wonder,  ''Is  that  God?  I  have  always 
known  him,  but  until  now  I  did  not  know 
his  name." 

The  scientific  conception  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  can  never  be  accepted  as  apply- 
ing^ to  the  spiritual  relations  of 

Ube  Survival 

of  man,    for   the   reason   that   it 

tbe  'Unfit         ,  .    .     ,, 

characteristically  conceives  of 

man  as  on  the  animal  level  only.  On  the 
physical  plane  it  is  true  that  nature  brings 
into  being  more  creatures,  as  it  does  ani- 
mals, than  can  be  educated  into  permanent 
well-being.  Thus  conceived  of,  the  individ- 
ual is  of  account  as  the  mere  natural  pro- 
genitor of  a  better  race — in  order  to  im- 
prove the  breed ;  and  failing  to  do  this  mere 
nature  tends  to  put  an  end  to  man  as  she 
does  to  the  animalculse.  The  race  of  man 
thus  viewed  as  a  kind,  has  no  original  and 
enduring  relation  to  the  infinite  One.  Says 
Dr.  George  A.  Gordon :  "  Such  a  view  of 
election  to  life  covers  only  the  few  finest 
Specimens  and  reprobates  the  overwhelming 


of  flQlggtong [25] 

majority  among  the  lower  races  to  death. 
This  is  the  new  Calvinism  that  is  tempting 
thinkers.  It  is  the  Calvinism  (I  should  say 
the  hyper-Calvinism)  of  nature,  elaborated 
from  the  method  of  the  universe  with  animal 
life  which,  when  applied  to  man,  is  the 
translation  of  the  method  of  the  brute  world 
into  the  human  world."  Humanity  is  thus 
''  an  ideal  which  a  few  are  born  to  com- 
pass, but  which  for  men  in  general  is  a 
hopeless  impossibility." 

Dr.  A.  H.  Bradford,  in  commenting  on 
the  severity  of  the  Darwinian  interpretation 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  is  reported  once 
to  have  said  substantially :  "  If  I  were  given 
to  choose  being  left  in  the  hands  of  the 
law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  and  being 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  God  even  of  Ed- 
wards' famous  sermon  entitled,  '  Sinners  in 
the  Hands  of  an  Angry  God,'  I  would  much 
prefer  the  latter."  So  pessimistic  a  view  of 
human  life  as  that  represented  by  Dar- 
win's law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  thank 
God,  is  not  the  view  of  Christianity;    for 


[26]  zbc  mvim  IRtQbt 

Christianity  regards  humanity  as  not  merely 
animal,  but  made  in  the  image  of  God  also, 
belonging  to  a  commonwealth  of  moral 
worth,  with  the  possibilities  of  redeemed 
spiritual  being.  Hence,  all  the  unfit  may 
pass  into  the  higher  stage  of  existence  and 
so,  as  precious  to  God,  may  survive;  and 
more  than  survive :  they  may  be  redeemed. 
It  will  be  recalled  that  the  late  Prof. 
George  J.  Romanes,  when  he  returned  to 
Christian  faith  after  a  long  period  of  ag- 
nostic doubt,  acknowledged  that  at  the  ear- 
lier period  of  his  scientific  studies  he  "  did 
not  sufficiently  appreciate  the  immense  im- 
portance of  human  nature,  as  distinguished 
from  physical  nature,  in  any  inquiry  touch- 
ing theism."  He  himself  says :  "  But  since 
that  early  time  I  have  seriously  studied  an- 
thropology, including  the  science  of  com- 
parative religions,  psychology,  and  meta- 
physics, with  the  result  of  clearly  seeing  that 
human  nature  is  the  most  important  part  of 
nature  as  a  whole,  whereby  to  investigate 
the  theory  of  theism."     "  This,"  Romanes 


of  nilt6gtong [27] 

says,  *'  I  ought  to  have  anticipated  on  merely 
a  priori  grounds,  and  no  doubt  should  have 
perceived  had  I  not  been  too  much  immersed 
in  merely  physical  research." 

It  may  be  added  that  this  eminent  man, 
for  so  many  years  a  close  follower  of  Dar- 
win, was  led  to  this  new  appreciation  of  hu- 
man nature — the  chief  part  of  nature — 
through  correspondence  with  a  Christian 
missionary,  who  had  also  attained  a  distinc- 
tion in  the  realm  of  natural  science.  I  refer 
to  Dr.  John  T.  Gulick,  now  of  Honolulu, 
and  with  whom  the  present  writer  had  a  per- 
sonal interview  last  spring  concerning  this 
very  matter.  On  far  deeper  principles  than 
physical  science  even  at  its  best  has  ever 
contemplated,  cannibals  of  interior  Africa 
and  the  South  Seas,  the  pariahs  of  India, 
counted  by  their  tyrannical  superiors  as  the 
oflfscouring  of  the  earth,  and  many  morally 
bankrupt  tribes  of  people  have  survived  by 
myriads,  and  are  the  glorious  trophies  of 
Christian  missions,  even  of  Christ  himself, 
who  is  the  Saviour  of  the  lost,  the  Re- 


[28]        zbc  mvinc  IRtgbt 

deemer  of  all  types  of  human  failure  and 
social  disorder.  A  religion  which  can  pro- 
duce such  a  saving  reversal  of  human  pros- 
pects and  conditions  is  adapted  to  find  wel- 
come and  prevalence  on  a  universal  scale. 

But  a  third  ground  of  confidence  for  be- 
lieving that  Christianity  is  adapted  to  be- 
come the  universal  and  abso- 

JEmp  basts  on 

logaits        lute  religion  is  in  the  valuation 

to   Itflbt  ,  1    ,  •  r     .    1  1 

placed  by  it  upon  faith,  or  the 
principle  of  loyalty  to  light.  It  is  because 
of  faith  considered  as  loyalty  to  light  that 
the  soul  may  be  encouraged  to  make  an  in- 
stant beginning  anywhere,  with  whatever 
measure  of  truth  it  has,  in  the  school  of 
Christ.  This  idea,  of  the  relation  of  in- 
stant action  to  any  degree  of  light  as  an  act 
of  faith,  has  not  always  prevailed,  and  is 
even  now  far  from  universal  in  the  common 
Christian  thought.  There  are  those  who 
hold  that  in  order  to  the  existence  of  faith 
in  any  biblical  sense,  there  must  first  be  in 
the  mind  a  certain  intellectual  concept  or 
set  of  concepts,  which  as  such  must  be  dog- 


of  flQlggtong [29] 

matically  believed,  before  the  soul  can  have 
saving  faith. 

Such  a  position  assumes  that  faith  is 
primarily  and  essentially  an  intellectual  be- 
lief: beHef  in  a  doctrine  about  God,  or 
Christ,  or  the  Bible.  But  this  is  far  from 
the  truth  concerning  Christian  faith.  There 
is  a  place  for  intellectual  beliefs,  but  this 
in  the  school  of  method  is  both  before  and 
after  the  personal  saving  faith  of  which 
we  now  are  speaking.  It  goes  without  say- 
ing that  in  any  rational  being,  the  soul  must 
start  witli  a  certain  stock  of  elementary  be- 
liefs or  intuitions;  and  other  things  being 
equal,  intellectual  beliefs  will  always  in- 
crease and  clarify  as  Christian  experience 
enlarges  and  deepens. 

Saving  faith  at  its  heart,  however,  is  a 
moral  attitude.  It  is  the  collective  execu- 
tive attitude  and  ultimately  the  act  of  the 
entire  being.  As  such,  therefore,  any  soul 
anywhere,  whatever  its  degree  of  intelli- 
gence or  light,  is  capable  of  exercising  faith 
in  principle  the  moment  it  is  appealed  to. 


[3o]      Ube  mvinc  TRtgbt 

Christianity  alone  among  religions  takes 
note  of  so  elemental  a  thing.  Christianity 
accommodates  itself  to  man's  present  mental 
furnishings,  irrespective  of  his  own  religious 
classification  of  himself.  Christ  in  his  school 
requires  of  no  soul  more  than  one  step  at  a 
time,  and  that  step  a  relative  one  in  view  of 
all  the  conditions  it  faces.  It  is  in  my  be- 
lief at  this  point  that  many  Christians  sadly, 
narrowly  misunderstand  their  own  reHgion, 
and  often  place  the  cart  before  the  horse  in 
their  initial  appeals  to  men.  This  embar- 
rasses Christianity  and  retards  its  accept- 
ance. 

So  also  it  is  a  tactical  mistake  in  the  win- 
ning of  adherents  to  put  Christianity  as  a 

philosophy   over   against   any 
Cbrf6tian(ts       ^  ^    ''  ^  ^  "^ 

•Wot  other  form  of  religion  as  a 

philosophy  m  the  rivalry  of  a 
debate.  Those  who  proceed  as  if  Chris- 
tianity were  a  competitive  religion  always 
do  so  to  the  damage  of  Christianity;  they 
misrepresent  its  spirit  and  distort  its 
method.     Christianity  is  not  in  the  field  to 


ot  fiQiggiong [31] 

gain  a  partisan  mental  victory.  Such  vic- 
tories as  Christianity  wins,  it  wins  from  in- 
trinsic, unselfish  desert,  because  it  comple- 
ments the  limited  or  vitalizes  the  expiring 
hope  in  other  systems.  Christianity  never 
seeks  victory  for  any  selfish  ends,  but  be- 
cause of  its  genuine  and  quenchless  love  for 
those  whom  it  would  win  from  error  and 
short-sightedness ;  it  "  came  not  to  destroy 
but  to  fulfill  "  (Matt.  5  :  17).  It  comes  as 
sunrise  comes,  not  to  disparage  the  morn- 
ing star,  but  to  bring  on  the  day. 

What  the  seeker  after  God  chiefly  needs 
is  to  find  the  clue  which  will  lead  to  the 
truth  absolute  at  the  end  of  the  search.  No 
soul  conditioned  in  this  world  as  it  is,  really 
ever  does  much  more  than  follow  such  a 
clue,  with  some  aberrations,  to  the  solutions 
of  the  mysteries  involved  in  his  religion. 
And  so  the  central  task  of  the  soul-winner 
is  to  put  the  soul  on  the  clue  to  better  things. 
It  is  not  the  first  business  of  the  Christian 
teacher  to  furnish  a  creedal  religion,  ready- 
made  with  answers  to  peculiarly  speculative 


[3^]  Ube  WMnc  TRtgbt 

queries,  but  rather  to  put  and  keep  men  on 
this  practical  "  clue/'  as  we  have  called  it. 
He  is  to  hint  the  immediate  next  step,  and 
then  the  successive  steps  toward  the  experi- 
mental knowledge  of  Christ  himself,  and 
later  to  a  philosophy  about  Christ.  There  is 
a  place  for  a  philosophy,  for  theology,  but 
this  place  is  secondary.  Christ  is  always 
within  personal  touch  of  every  soul  even 
though  the  soul  knows  it  not;  and  by 
pressing  inopportunely  our  opinions  about 
Christ  we  may  widen  an  existing  chasm  of 
separation  when  we  should  close  it.  Real 
touch  with  Christ  is  received  through  the 
inducement  of  the  right  personal  attitude, 
in  the  light  one  has,  toward  his  ideal.  The 
Apostle  John  calls  this  ideal  "  the  Word," 
or  Christ,  that  light  "  which  lighteth  every 
man  coming  into  the  world  "  (John  1:9), 
the  omnipresent  living  Redeemer.  It  was 
this  Christ  the  primitive  church  so  inti- 
mately knew. 

To  assume  this  willing  attitude  toward 
one's  ideal  is  faith,  a  faith  which  is  morally 


of  nntggtong [33] 

rather  than  intellectually  conditioned.^  Our 
will  has  no  power  of  itself  to  effect  in  the 
soul  the  sense  of  the  essential  Christ.  The 
will,  however,  can  negative  the  living  lie 
which  controls  the  life  wherein  sin  rules  it, 
and  the  moment  this  is  done,  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  rushes  to  the  soul's  confessed  help- 
lessness and  effects  faith  in  him.  As  nature 
abhors  a  vacuum,  so  Christ  loathes  a  spirit- 
ual void  in  a  human  being.  The  moment,  in 
the  light  one  has,  the  will  bids  a  sin  vacate 
the  heart's  throne,  that  moment  the  Spirit 
of  Christ  with  infinite  eagerness  rushes  in  to 
fill  the  void.  God's  interest  in  conferring 
grace  is  vastly  greater  than  man's  in  ac- 
cepting it. 

Says  Dr.  Hermann  Cremer :  "  The  won- 
drous counter-effect  of  God  against  man's 
sin  is  indeed  a  supernatural  thing,  the  abso- 
lutely inconceivable  to  human  philosophy; 
it  is  different  from  anything  which  else- 
where or  otherwise  ever  takes  place  or  can 

*  For  a  fuller  discussion  of  this  important  matter  see 
the  author's  "  Method  in  Soul- Winning,"  Chap.  IV,  pub- 
lished by  Fleming  H.   Revell  Co.,  New  York. 


[34] Ube  5)t\>ine  tRlQbt 

take  place.  This  is  the  interior  profound 
reality  of  the  Christian  rehgion."  And  it  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  Christianity  is  a  rehgion 
of  grace — a  rehgion  which  takes  the  initia- 
tive with  the  guilty  and  the  undeserving. 

Now  assuming  that  this  beginning  in 
Christian  experience,  which  we  have  called 
the  entrance  on  the  clue  to  the  experimental 
realization  of  the  Christ,  has  taken  place, 
Christianity  depends  for  its  deeper,  maturer, 
intellectual  apprehension  of  what  has  oc- 
curred, upon  the  retrospect  of  such  an  ex- 
perience, as  the  mind  of  the  regenerated 
one,  like  a  waking  dreamer,  casts  its  eye 
backward  over  the  course  so  mysteriously 
traversed. 

At  this  point  the  Holy  Scriptures  also, 
with  indispensable  value  meet  a  profound 
need.  They  bring  out  into  consciousness,  as 
they  also  explain  to  the  understanding,  what 
has  occurred;  and  they  afford  a  basis  on 
which  further  and  yet  clearer  subjective  ex- 
periences may  be  had.  Here  is  a  large  place 
for    objective,    even    external    truth — that 


ot  naisstong [35] 

truth  which  in  some  modern  thinking  is  so 
much  disparaged,  or  quite  ignored,  for  ex- 
ample, in  some  forms  of  the  RitschHan 
theology. 

Moreover,  it  is  important  and  reinforc- 
ing to  faith  to  remember  that  this  loyalty/ 

to    lio^ht    which    Christianity 
ffaitb  ©ivfneiB    SO    values    receives    from    its 

divme  Author  a  peculiar  attes- 
tation. It  is  not  always  indeed,  and  with  all 
temperaments,  at  once  consciously  attested 
in  an  emotional  way;  but  in  fact,  and  par- 
ticularly in  the  after  history  of  the  believer, 
this  faith  is  so  attested.  The  eleventh  chap- 
ter of  Hebrews  would  seem  to  have  been 
written  expressly  to  emphasize  this.  In  that 
chapter  faith  is  declared  to  be  "  the  proving 
of  things  not  seen " ;  the  Margin  reads, 
"the  test"  (Heb.  11  :  i,  R.  V.).  As  Abel, 
Abraham,  Moses,  and  others  put  God's 
promises  to  the  test,  he  attested  them  by 
the  altered  forms  which  their  after-history 
took  on.  Therein  all  the  elders  were  well-at- 
tested— "  had  witness  borne  to  them  "  (Heb. 


[36] Ube  Mvinc  TRtpbt 

II  :  2,  4,  5,  39,  R.  v.).  So  also  all  men  of 
faith  in  one  form  or  another  have  "  had 
witness  borne  to  them."  Were  it  not  so 
God  would  deny  himself. 

This  attestation  would  come  to  him  who 
follows  the  light  of  nature,  although  in  a 
different  degree,  as  really  as  to  him  who 
follows  the  light  of  revelation,  because  the 
God  of  nature  and  of  revelation  are  one 
and  the  same  being.  Christ  speaks  as  really, 
though  with  less  distinctness  in  the  voice 
of  natural  conscience  as  in  his  written  word, 
because  the  conscience  with  all  other  created 
things  is  constructed  according  to  Christ, 
the  true  norm  of  creation.  The  conscience 
indeed,  as  well  as  other  powers  of  the 
natural  man,  is  weakened  or  perverted  by 
sin,  and  needs  to  be  renewed  and  quickened, 
corrected  and  educated  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
through  the  written  word.  The  voice  of 
Christ  speaks  in  the  conscience,  however 
obscurely;  and  to  follow  that  conscience, 
though  imperfectly,  is  of  the  spirit  of 
faith. 


of  niltggtong   [37] 

It  is  the  misfortune  of  traditional  Chris-  ^ 

tianity  that  it  is  yet  supposed  by  some  of  its 

followers  that  the  operation  of 

divine  grrace   is  conterminous  '^^^  Operation 

of  ©race  not 
with  the  limited  area  in  which    Conterminous 

,  ^      .  ,  witb  formal 

the  Scriptures  are  known;  -Revelation 
that  faith  and  experience  in 
themselves  cannot  exist  except  where  Bible 
knowledge  exists.  To  this  extent  Chris- 
tianity has  narrowly  and  mistakenly  alien- 
ated from  itself  much  territory  which  really 
belongs  to  it.  It  is  the  first  function  of 
Christian  revelation  to  bring  to  light  what 
is  in  the  spiritual  realm;  for  example,  life 
and  immortality,  the  love  of  God  in  Christ, 
and  the  suspended  judgment  on  sin.  Paul 
says  it  was  given  to  him  as  the  apostle  to 
the  Gentiles,  "  To  make  all  men  see  what  is 
the  dispensation  of  the  mystery  which  for 
ages  hath  been  hid  in  God"  (Eph.  3:9). 
But  the  existence  of  every  form  of  grace, 
at  least  potentially,  was  before  revelation 
and  independent  of  it.  It  is  of  the  realities, 
and  not  of  the  explanation  or  the  enrich- 


[38] Ube  mx>inc  TRtgbt 

ment  of  them,  we  speak.  "  In  the  beginning 
was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God, 
and  the  Word  was  God"  (John  i  :  i). 

We  beheve  that  the  period  of  long  wait- 
ing for  converts  on  many  a  mission  field 
might  be  amazingly  reduced  if  this  matter 
of  which  we  are  speaking  were  better  under- 
stood and  effort  were  more  skilfully  appHed. 
By  endeavoring  at  first  to  lay  too  extensive 
an  intellectual  groundwork  for  a  later  prop- 
agation of  doctrine,  the  missionary  may 
altogether  obscure  the  more  primary  and 
elementary  basis  of  faith,  namely,  the  pres- 
ent Hght  possessed. 

In  the  account  of  David's  Brainerd's  work 

among  the  Delaware  Indians,  he  speaks  of 

^^  a  remarkable  priest,  a  reform- 

Bboriginai     gr  who  had  been  "  stran2:ely 

pcopbet  *    '' 

moved  to  devote  his  life  to  an 

endeavor  to  restore  the  ancient  religion  of 

the  Indians."  ^  "  He  was  grotesquely  dressed 

in  Indian  fashion,  but  he  was  evidently  de- 

1  This  incident  is  substantially  quoted  from  the 
author's  "  Method  in  Soul-Winning,"  published  by 
Revell,  N.  Y. 


of  fintgglons  [39] 

vout."  He  lamented  freely  the  degenerate 
condition  of  the  Indians,  and  said  that 
"  their  ignorance  and  wickedness  had  so 
troubled  him  sometimes  that  he  had  felt 
driven  to  the  woods  in  the  solitariness  of  his 
distress  for  them."  At  length  God  would 
comfort  his  heart  and  show  him  what  he 
should  do,  whereupon  he  would  return  to 
his  associates  and  love  and  labor  for  them 
as  never  before.  While  Brainerd  was  dis- 
cussing with  him,  at  times  he  would  say, 
"  Now  that  I  like,  so  God  taught  me."  This 
reformer  had  a  doctrine  "  that  departed 
souls  all  went  southward,"  with  this  differ- 
ence, that  **  the  good  were  admitted  into  a 
beautiful  town  with  spiritual  walls,  or  walls 
agreeable  to  the  nature  of  souls,  and  that 
the  latter  would  forever  hover  near  those 
walls,  and  in  vain  attempt  to  get  in."  Brain- 
erd testifies  that  this  man  was  sincere,  hon- 
est, and  conscientious,  according  to  his  own 
religious  opinions,  as  no  other  pagan  he  had 
seen.  He  labored  earnestly  to  banish  the 
drink  habit  among  the  Indians;   but  by  his 


[4o] XTbe  WMnc  IRt^bt 

followers  for  the  most  part  he  was  regarded 
as  *'  a  precise  zealot,"  and  his  efforts  were 
unheeded. 

It  would  thus  appear  that  in  the  heart  of 
//'this  nature-taught  savage  was  the  spirit  of 
faith,  existing  with  most  limited  light.  It 
needed  further  instruction  to  give  it  such 
form  and  power  as  would  enable  it  to  grasp 
the  large  concept  of  "  salvation  " ;  but  the 
germ  of  the  new  righteousness  of  faith 
evidently  was  there,  before  the  missionary- 
came  with  his  message.  It  was  the  function 
of  the  missionary  to  instruct  and  develop 
that  germinal  faith  to  bring  it  to  intelligence 
and  power.  How  far  even  Brainerd  did 
this,  we  are  not  told. 

Within  the  past  few  years  considerable 
tribes  of  people  akin  to  the  Karens  have 

TTbe  mub6O0    b^^^  ^o^^^^  ^y  missionaries  in 
an^  ubeir       Eastern  Burma,  and  over  the 

UraMtlons 

borders  in  China  and  Siam. 
They  are  known  as  Muhsos,  Was,  and 
Kwes.^      They    give    evidence    of    having 

^  See  Appendix. 


of  fmtgstong [41] 

somehow  been  taught  an  elementary  faith 
in  a  gospel  to  come.  They  have  for  years 
been  waiting  for  the  coming  of  foreign 
teachers  who  they  believed  would  teach 
them  of  the  true  God.  There  have  even 
been  developed  among  them  religious  teach- 
ers, nature-taught  or  spirit-taught,  who  have 
served  to  keep  alive  and  foster  their  higher 
hopes.  These  people  were  found  wearing 
cotton  cords  about  their  necks  and  on  their 
wrists,  marks  of  their  separateness  from 
their  heathen  neighbors,  and  in  part  spirit- 
ually symbolic  of  the  bonds  in  which  they 
were  consciously  held  until  they  should  be 
freed  by  their  expected  emancipators. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  wise  missionaries 
among  such  a  people  would  at  once  begin 
their  work  by  fostering  and  explaining  this 
incipient  faith  in  the  essential  divine  re- 
demption which  had  been  previously  ac- 
cepted in  its  elementary  accents.  So  the 
missionaries  among  them  are  doing ;  and  al- 
ready in  this  one  field  several  thousand  con- 
verts have  been  baptized  and  are  being  dis- 


[42] Uhc  Mvinc  TRlgbt 

cipled  to  the  Christ  of  the  New  Testament. 

Doubtless  many  illustrations  similar  to 
this  among  heathen  peoples  exist,  if  they 
were  known,  and  if  known  appreciated.  If 
so,  they  are  evidence  of  the  at-homeness  of 
Christ's  religion  among  all  men  everywhere. 
Moreover,  Christianity  is  a  religion  which 
by  its  very  nature,  so  far  from  being  hidden 
from  the  discernment  of  the  simple-minded 
whose  intellectual  horizon  is  Hmited,  is  a  re- 
ligion which  in  its  central  principle  cannot 
be  apprehended  by  the  intellect  alone,  how- 
ever well  it  may  be  instructed  even  by  the 
Bible. 

Christianity  as  apprehensible  to  faith  re- 
quires the  right  use  of  other  faculties  of  the 
Composite      ^^^^  besides  the  intellect :  such 

Eiementa  in  as  the  conscience,  the  feelings, 
the  imagination,  and  above  all 
the  will.  The  entire  composite  soul  must  be 
open.  The  living  God  cannot  authenticate 
himself  to  the  mere  fragment  of  a  man,  even 
though  that  fragment  be  his  majestic  reason. 
In  the  mere  action  of  the  understanding,  the 


of  flUtggiong [43] 

executive  soul  puts  itself  in  reality  outside 
the  truth,  and  simply  speculates.  One  needs 
to  move  by  an  act  of  will  inside  the  truth 
with  all  the  love  of  the  heart,  and  with  all 
the  moral  sense  of  the  conscience.  He  who 
does  this  with  due  regard  to  objective 
truth  and  in  the  right  subjective  attitude 
finds  reality.  The  agnosticism  of  the  world 
is  the  natural  outcome  of  a  mistaken  in- 
tellectual self-sufficiency,  a  species  of  intel- 
lect-worship. To  such  self-sufficiency  there 
is  and  can  be  no  valid  religious  author- 
ity. The  biographer  of  George  J.  Romanes 
tells  us  that  as  he  drew  near  the  end  of  life 
he  reproached  himself  for  what  he  called 
"  sins  of  the  intellect,  mental  arrogance,  and 
undue  regard  for  intellectual  supremacy." 
Romanes  then  clearly  saw  the  principle  we 
have  enunciated,  that  faith  in  the  Christian 
sense  is  essentially  a  right  moral  attitude  to 
the  light  one  has  irrespective  of  its  degree 
or  source.  It  could  not  be  otherwise  than 
that  those  who  close  moral  avenues  of  the 
soul  in  the  interest  of  "  speculative  suprem- 


[44] Ubc  Bivinc  IRtgbt 

acy,"  should  blindly  miss  the  way  to  God. 
It  is  of  such  blindness  of  heart  that  our 
Lord  spoke  when  he  said :  "  Thou  didst  hide 
these  things  from  the  wise  and  understand- 
ing, and  didst  reveal  them  unto  babes " 
(Matt.  12  :  25).  The  essential  difference 
in  habit  of  mind  between  the  babe — the  child 
mind — and  the  creature  of  intellectual  pru- 
dence, the  philosophic  mind,  is  this,  that  the 
babe  brings  its  whole  composite  being  into 
action,  and  the  philosopher  but  a  fragment 
of  his  being.  Now  Christianity  risks  every- 
thing as  to  its  self-evidencing  power  with 
him  who  will  put  its  proposals  to  the  experi- 
mental test.  In  this  respect  the  method  of 
Christianity  is  in  line  with  the  inductive 
method  in  the  physical  sciences.  It  puts  the 
inquirer  into  the  laboratory  as  if  he  were  a 
chemist  with  his  elemental  substances,  his 
crucibles,  dynamos,  test  tubes,  etc.,  and  says, 
''  Now  by  personal  experimentation  enter 
into  relations  with  the  God  of  grace ;  use  his 
means  of  grace,  and  get  your  experienced 
results.    Those  results  you  will  find  to  cor- 


ot  miiggiong  [45] 

respond  with  the  true  and  worthy  dog- 
matics, or  theorems  of  your  text-books ;  and 
wherein  they  do  not,  you  must  revise  your 
theories."  Thus  Christianity  shines  in  its 
own  Hght.  As  thus  relying  upon  its  self- 
evidencing  power,  Christianity  can  afford  to 
appeal  instantly,  everywhere,  to  all  types  of 
earnest  life,  without  fear  of  any  rival.  Its 
practical  difficulty  indeed,  is  to  secure  in 
human  nature  the  teachableness  that  will 
really  test  it.  When,  however,  this  is  se- 
cured, and  the  test  is  applied,  the  divine  at- 
testation is  always  forthcoming,  and  there 
results  an  experience  of  a  reality  which  is 
self-approving. 

But  lest  in  placing  such  emphasis  upon 
this  matter  of  the  value  of  a  believing  atti- 
tude toward  the  measure  of  light  possessed, 
it  be  thought  that  this  is  too  subjective,  we 
pass  on  to  say  that  there  is  a  complementary 
truth  undoubtedly  needed ;  and  this  also  is 
supplied  by  Christianity  through  the  presen- 
tation of  its  eternal  and  personal  Christ,  as 
the  adequate  object  of  faith.    Faith — Chris- 


[46] Zbc  mvinc  IRtQbt 

tain  faith  in  its  complete  sense — does  de- 
mand an  adequate  external  object  upon 
which  to  rest,  as  well  as  a  right  internal 
attitude. 

And  here  Christianity  meets  the  case,  for 
Christianity   is   objectively  the   religion   of 

UbciRcUaton    ^     person.       Christianity     is 

®*  *  Christ,    the   personal    Christ, 

hereon  ^ 

In  saying  this,  however,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  this  Christ  was 
present  in  the  universe  as  "  the  essential 
Christ,"  ^  just  as  really  and  even  personally 
so,  before  the  historic  incarnation  as  after. 
As  his  personality,  however,  came  to  ex- 
pression in  the  incarnation,  thus  only  could 
Christ  be  satisfactorily  known.  The  de- 
gree of  knowledge  of  this  person,  whether 
with  or  without  revelation,  may  and  does 
vary  widely.  Some  may  not  know  his  name 
at  all,  like  Socrates  or  Seneca,  or  Melchize- 
dek,  or  Helen  Keller  in  the  early  stages  of 
her   reHgious  musings.     Of  course,   other 

1  The  apotheosis  of  wisdom  in  Prov.  8  has  long  been 
considered  as  a  form  of  description  of  this  essential  Christ. 


of  fnitsgtong  [47] 

things  being  equal,  the  more  perfectly 
Christ's  name — as  explaining  his  redeeming 
work — is  apprehended  by  the  intelligence, 
the  better  for  a  faith  that  would  be  robust. 
The  point  to  be  noted,  however,  is  that  the 
Christ  of  the  New  Testament  is  one  and  the 
same  person  with  "  the  essential  Christ,"  the 
external  Logos  of  eternity.  He  has  always 
been  existent  in  the  universe,  with  his  re- 
deeming purpose.  All  things  were  created 
by  him  and  for  him,  and  all  things  consist 
or  hold  together  in  him.  So  far  as  any  one 
has  been  saved,  as  multitudes  in  the  old 
economy,  previous  to  the  full  revelation 
of  Christ,  doubtless  were  saved  in  some 
degree,  they  were  saved  on  the  basis  of  the 
eternal  incipient  atonement  of  God-in- 
Christ.^    "  Neither  is  there  salvation  in  any 


^  Of  course  such  a  conception  of  salvation  is  a  most 
inadequate  one  as  compared  with  that  which  the  New 
Testament  sets  forth.  It  is  at  the  best  but  embryonic, 
and  far  from  satisfies  any  ideal  worthy  of  a  Bible- 
enlightened  Christian  or  an  intelligent  missionary  passion; 
but  it  is  folly  to  deny  an  infantine  faith  where  it  is  found 
to  exist,  and  he  grossly  misinterprets  our  God  if  one 
represent  him  as  inappreciative  of  it.  (Jonah  4  :  10,  11; 
Acts  10  :   35.; 


[48] Xlbe  mvinc  IRtgbt 

other"  (Acts  4  :  12).  He  was  first  re- 
vealed as  ''the  seed  of  the  woman"  (Gen. 
3  :  15),  and  later  to  Israel  by  his  memorial 
name,  "  Yahweh,"  or  "  Jehovah,"  ''  the  one 
who  will  be  "  (Exod.  3  :  14).  At  length  he 
was  fully  disclosed  in  the  actual  incarnation. 
But  he  was  ever  ''  the  Ancient  of  days " 
(Dan.  7  :  13).  "  In  the  beginning  was  the 
Word"  (John  1:1).  He  was  that  light 
"  which  lighteth  every  man  coming  into  the 
world"  (John  1:9).  He  was  that  su- 
preme personified  ideal  of  all  lesser  forms 
of  ideal  by  whomsoever  or  wherever  cher- 
ished. 

Says  Paul  in  his  letter  to  the  Romans: 
"  But  the  righteousness  of  faith  saith  thus, 

Ube  •wflor&  or    ^ay  not  in  thine  heart,  Who 

ii6eai  in       g^all  ascend  into  heaven  ?  (that 
tbc  IHeart 

is,    to    bring    Christ    down:) 

or,  Who  shall  descend  into  the  abyss?  (that 

is,  to  bring  Christ  up  from  the  dead.)     But 

what  saith  it  ?    The  word  is  nigh  thee — that 

is,  the  ideal  is  nigh  thee — in  thy  mouth  and 

in  thy  heart ;  that  is,  the  word  of  faith  which 


of  rmtggtong        [49] 

we  preach"  (Rom.  10:6-8).  This  "word," 
or  ideal  of  faith  in  itself  considered,  as  we 
understand  the  apostle's  thought,  is  such  a 
thing  as  may  be  vaguely  cherished  in  the 
human  heart  in  an  intuitional  way,  irrespec- 
tive of  a  book  revelation.  "  The  word  of 
faith  which  we  preach,"  is  the  same  reality 
— the  ideal  cherished — receiving  a  clearer, 
fuller,  and  biblical  explanation.  This  essen- 
tial faith,  as  latent,  incipient,  and  existent  in 
however  slight  a  degree  in  the  human  soul 
is  immediately  and  everywhere  to  be  sought 
for  by  the  Christian  missionary.  This  em- 
bryonic thing — faith  in  an  ideal  however 
faint — wherever  found  is  to  be  promptly  en- 
couraged, explained,  led  out  into  exercise 
and  fed  with  revealed  truth,  for  it  may  be 
depended  on  as  a  sign  that  the  essential 
Christ  is  brooding  the  soul  and  yearning 
with  infinite  solicitude  to  bring  it  to  its  own. 
It  is  with  this  elementary,  rudimentary 
faith-principle  in  the  soul  that  the  mission- 
ary finds  his  true  place  of  beginning  with 
the  pagan  mind  everywhere.     In  this  he 

D 


[so]         Ube  g)tptne  TRtQbt 

finds  the  soul's  moral  handle  which  he  may 
seize,  hold,  and  control  for  larger  and 
higher  things. 

As  the  nature  of  God,  and  he  is  one  God, 

whether  speaking  in  nature  or  revelation, 

iin  wbat  sense   ^^^  become  better  understood, 

©Ob  t0         ^vg  i^ave  come  to  see  that  he 
Hmmanent 

is  more  than  a  being  whose 

favor  may  be  won.  God  always  is  and  has 
been  a  being  who  is  in  the  attitude  of  the 
initiator  of  the  processes  of  grace.  He  is 
always  beforehand  with  the  sons  of  men. 
Through  those  distortions  of  God  which 
the  presence  of  sin  in  the  soul  always  tends 
to  create,  God  is  made  to  appear  not  only 
wholly  outside  the  soul,  but  far  off  from  it, 
and  even  hostile  to  it.  The  sinner  always 
conceives  of  God  as  his  enemy,  whose  re- 
luctance to  save  must  be  overcome.  Now 
this  is  a  dreadful  caricature  of  God,  and 
entirely  falsifies  the  situation.  We  are  com- 
ing to  see  that  in  a  deep  sense  God  is  really 
immanent  in  the  soul,  that  as  omnipresent  he 
dwells  within  the  sphere  at  least  of  all  human 


of  nfltggiong  [51] 

personality,  in  its  conscience  and  conscious- 
ness. To  be  sure,  in  the  case  of  the  unre- 
generate,  God,  while  existing  in  the  sphere 
of  personality,  has  not  yet  come  to  occupy 
the  throne  room  of  the  heart,  so  as  to  form 
Christ  within  it.  Nevertheless,  God  as  Sa- 
viour is  ever  knocking  at  the  heart's  door 
to  find  welcome  and  entrance.  He  is  infi- 
nitely eager  to  break  through  man's  antago- 
nism. Like  the  atmosphere  pressing  with 
ever-persistent  force  many  pounds  to  the 
square  inch  to  enter  every  vacuum,  so  the 
God  of  grace  presses  to  ascend  the  throne 
of  man's  heart  to  save  and  bless.  There  is  a 
spiritual  immanence  for  which  the  divine 
immanence  as  ordinarily  understood  by 
Prof.  B.  P.  Bowne  and  others  is  but  the  pre- 
condition of  the  profounder  experience.^ 

A  real  penitent  never  has  to  do  God's 
work  for  him;  to  provide  any  propitiation 
for  himself  to  render  God  willing,  or  to 
importune  him  to  relax  any  supposed  reluc- 

^  See  a  fine  discussion  of  this  subject  in  "  The  Diviner 
Immanence,"  by  Francis  J.  McConnell.  Published  by 
Eaton    &    Mains,    New   York. 


[52] Ubc  Mvinc  IRtgbt 

tance  on  his  part  to  save.  Surely  God,  in 
whom  the  atonement  was  eternal,  who  as  the 
essential  Christ,  was  before  the  world  came 
into  being,  and  in  whom  as  the  eternal  Logos 
man's  very  constitution  had  its  ground,  can- 
not for  a  moment  be  truly  thought  of  as 
waiting  on  man  to  take  the  initiative  in  his 
salvation,  except  as  the  withdrawal  of  man's 
sinful  resistance  to  the  gracious  control  of 
the  soul's  true  Sovereign  may  be  considered 
as  initiative.  Let  but  one  step  in  penitence 
for  sin,  and  in  faith  Godward,  be  taken  by 
the  human  soul,  and  the  God  of  grace,  how- 
ever poorly  understood  intellectually,  or 
theologically,  will  be  found  in  the  essential 
Christ,  or  the  moral  ideal  trusted,  waiting 
to  embrace  it,  even  as  the  father  in  the  para- 
ble of  the  prodigal — who  was  really  God-in- 
Christ — saw  his  penitent  son  "  while  he  was 
yet  a  great  way  off,  and  ran  and  embraced 
him"  (Luke  15  :  20),  and  welcomed  him 
home  to  the  heavenly  forgiveness  and 
bounty.  Thus  the  spirit  of  Deity  and  the 
essential  Christ  have  ever  been  one  and  the 


ot  flntsstong [53] 

same  in  their  gracious  attitude  to  mankind, 
even  though  imperfectly  known. 

This  Christ,  however,  of  whom  we  have 
been  speaking,  as  "  the  essential  Christ "  as 
dimly  apprehended  in  pre-  ebrist  tbc 
Christian  times,  or  among  ®^'"t  '^^ 
peoples  destitute  of  the  Bible 
revelation,  is  the  "  Word,"  or  the  ideal  of 
Paul's  thought  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
is  the  personal  Jesus  of  Nazareth  in  the 
Gospels,  is  the  "  Word  made  flesh,"  of  John, 
who  "  dwelt  among  us,"  and  is  "  the  efful- 
gence of  the  divine  glory  and  the  image  of 
his  substance "  as  described  in  Hebrews. 
And  so  historical  Christianity  commends  y/ 
itself  as  preeminently  the  religion  of  a  per- 
son. In  this  religion  Christ  is  the  object — 
the  creative  author  and  end — of  his  religion 
rather  than  its  subject  as  his  followers  are. 
This  is  so  because  as  he  is  manifested  in  the 
New  Testament  he  is  a  real  incarnation  of 
Deity;  the  absolute  equivalent  of  Christ  is 
God  in  the  flesh.  Christ  did  indeed  per- 
fectly illustrate,  even  embody,  all  the  prin- 


[54]  XTbe  Divine  TRtgbt 

ciples  of  the  system  he  promulgated.  But 
he  was  not  the  product  of  that  rehgion.  He 
was  not  himself  made  by  the  current  relig- 
ions of  his  time,  not  even  by  Judaism,  and 
that  especially  as  some  would  have  it,  shaped 
by  the  religions  of  the  older,  larger  East. 
He  was  altogether  original,  supernatural, 
pre-existent,  self-supporting,  the  Christ  that 
should  judge  the  world.  He  came  "  from 
above,"  in  a  distinctive  and  unique  sense. 
His  religion  always  descends  upon  us,  as 
eventually  the  New  Jerusalem  will  come 
down  from  God  out  of  heaven. 

The  ethnic  religions  are  of  a  different 
sort.  They  indeed  have  had  their  prophets, 
like  Confucius,  Gotama,  Mahomet,  and  Zo- 
roaster. But  the  system  of  no  one  of  these 
prophets  inhered  in  himself  in  the  way  that 
Christ's  does  in  him ;  for  with  the  person  of 
Christ  himself  stands  or  falls  every  funda- 
mental doctrine  of  Christianity,  incarnation, 
atonement,  resurrection,  faith,  forgiveness, 
regeneration,  and  the  final  judgment  of 
grace ;   any  one  of  the  ethnic  systems  might 


of  nuiggtong [55] 

have  existed  in  its  principles  apart  from  the 
personaHty  of  its  promulgator.  The  exact 
opposite  is  the  case  with  Christianity  and  its 
Christ.  This  Christ  was  indeed  a  real  his- 
toric figure,  and  not  a  magical  prodigy,  not 
a  mere  religious  genius.  True,  he  had  hu- 
man limitations,  but  these  he  voluntarily  as- 
sumed for  us.  It  was  a  process  of  self- 
emptying  and  so  of  self-limitation  that  he 
underwent,  in  the  interests  of  holy  and 
saving  love.  In  the  realm  of  the  moral  and 
spiritual,  Christ  was  always  and  at  every 
moment  king.  He  dominated  for  spiritual 
ends  what  we  call  natural  law,  and  "  broke 
the  entail  of  sin  and  the  Nemesis  of  guilt " ; 
and  his  absolutely  original  power  to  do  this 
has  been  proved  in  the  experience  of  mil- 
lions who  have  been  recovered  from  sin's 
dominion.  His  becoming  sin  for  us,  and 
tasting  its  judgment,  was  throughout  a  vol- 
untary act,  a  moral  achievement,  such  as 
was  possible  only  to  Deity  in  the  flesh. 
Through  the  very  cross  he  suffered,  Christ 
catholicised  his   religion  and  universahzed 


[5 6]      TLbc  Mvinc  IRtgbt 

himself.  As  lifted  up  from  the  earth  he 
draws  all  unto  him. 

In  all  these  respects  Christ  was  his  own 
religion,  and  its  timeless  and  eternal  object 
for  all  men.  He  can  have  no  successor,  for 
he  himself  is  "  the  Word  made  flesh,"  "  the 
same  yesterday,  and  to-day,  yea  and  for- 
ever"  (Heb.  13:8).  Christ  therefore 
from  his  Virgin  birth  in  Bethlehem  to  his 
atoning  death  on  Calvary  is  the  consummate 
expression  of  the  divine  self-activity  at  its 
center,  challenging  the  world  to  put  him  to 
the  test  for  salvation  from  its  sins,  and  from 
all  moral  bondage.  He  is  himself  the 
gospel. 

As  the  divine-human  personality,  he  is  at 
once  the  supreme  revelation  of  both  God 
and  man  as  personal.  The  world  can  never 
know  who  God  is  until  it  knows  Christ. 
Nor  can  it  know  what  man  is  until  it  knows 
him  in  Christ.  Christ  was  the  universal 
man.  His  characteristic  designation  of 
himself  was  "  the  Son  of  man,"  by  which 
was  meant  that  he  was  idealized  man,  "  the 


of  mtsgtong [57] 

last  Adam  "  (i  Cor.  15  :  45),  the  new  head 
of  the  race ;  in  him  God  and  man  meet  and 
find  each  other.  The  Christian  idea  of  sal- 
vation is  the  response  by  faith  of  the  entire 
personality  of  man  to  the  grace  that  is  in 
the  whole  personality  of  Christ.  Chris- 
tianity recognizes  nothing  as  finally  accom- 
plished for  its  disciple  until  the  miracle 
wrought  upon  the  personal  will  of  the  be- 
liever has  secured  that  response,  and  the 
whole  being  is  recentered  in  Christ  to  be  at 
length  glorified  with  him. 

It  is  through  the  power  we  have  per- 
sonally to  test  this  religion  of  a  person  by 

the  response  of  our  whole  per- 

B6equatc 
sonality  to  its  overtures  and      Butbortt? 

,    .  ,  .  in  "Kcllgion 

claims,  that  we  arrive  at  un- 
questionable authority  in  religion,  and  in 
Vhe  Christian  religion  as  in  no  other.  It  is 
such  an  authority  chiefly  to  him  who  puts  it 
to  actual  test,  as  a  sinner  does  in  receiving 
redemption  through  Christ's  atoning  cross. 
This  testing  of  Christianity  receives  some- 
thing more  than  an  evidential  result. 


[58]  XTbe  mvinc  TRtgbt 

An  evidence  of  Christianity  is  something 
which  commends  itself  to  inteUigence,  to 
the  reason,  to  a  school  of  thought.  Au- 
thority deals  more  with  the  conscience,  com- 
mends itself  to  a  moral  situation,  to  the 
possibility  of  actual  victory  over  sin;  so 
this  authority  is  more  than  evidential.  It 
appeals  to  the  entire  composite  man,  but  es- 
pecially to  the  whole  person  as  moral,  as 
needing  redemption  from  sin,  and  it  ap- 
proves itself  as  a  gospel  of  salvation  even 
unto  the  uttermost.  Authority  for  a  human 
soul  needing  salvation  from  the  sin  situa- 
tion is  found  chiefly  in  the  disclosure  of  the 
real  grace,  which  can  be  experienced  and 
proved  in  the  soul's  life.  "  One  thing  I 
know,  that  whereas  I  was  blind  now  I  see  " 
(John  9  :    25). 

A  religion  thus  centering  in  a  person 
which  can  be  experimentally  tested  by  the 
right  relation  of  one's  whole  personality  to 
it,  is  the  ideal,  authoritative  religion  for 
universal  humanity,  of  whatever  race  or 
clime.     It  is  the  fundamentally  divine,  the 


ot  nutggtons [59] 

human,  the  universal  religion.  It  is  finality, 
even  absoluteness  itself  in  that  realm;  and 
so  commends  itself  to  all  men. 

But  again,  Christianity  is  adapted  to  be- 
come universal  in  its  prevalence  because 
it  reveals  a  doctrine  of  provi-     ^  soctrinc 

dence,   as   able   to   tranquilize  ®^ 

provi6cnc6 

and  bless  human  life,  irre- 
spective of  outward  or  material  conditions. 
This  doctrine  is  posited  on  the  assumption 
that  the  soul  has  but  one  final  and  absolute 
need,  and  that  is  God.  "  Whom  have  I  in 
heaven  but  thee,  and  there  is  none  upon  the 
earth  that  I  desire  beside  thee"  (Ps.  73  : 
25).  By  the  providence  of  God  we  mean 
the  assurance  so  emphatically  given  in  the 
Scriptures,  that  all  the  circumstances  and 
events  of  life  are  working  together  for  good 
to  the  soul  that  is  filial,  that  is  trustful  and 
submissive  in  its  attitude  toward  him  (Rom. 
8  :  28).  This  is  a  doctrine  that  cannot  be 
abstractly  proved,  apart  from  Scripture 
statements,  to  one  who  doubts  it.  If  ac- 
cepted at  all,  it  must  be  at  first  tentatively  ac- 


[6o] trbe  Divine  TRtgbt 

cepted  upon  grounds  of  one's  general  con- 
fidence in  the  teachings  of  revelation.  This 
done,  the  hypothesis  is  then  to  be  lived  upon 
step  by  step  and  day  by  day  in  the  school  of 
life.  As  this  is  done  ever  increasing  tran- 
quility of  life  follows,  and  the  evidence  of 
the  Mrisdom  of  thus  living  begins  to  grow, 
till  finally  no  event,  however  distressing, 
will  shake  one's  confidence  that  "  under- 
neath are  the  everlasting  arms."  With  Job 
one  can  say,  "  yea,  though  he  slay  me,  yet 
will  I  trust  him"  (Job  13  :  15).  One  will 
choose  with  Moses,  "  rather  to  suffer  afflic- 
tion with  the  people  of  God  than  to  enjoy 
the  pleasures  of  sin  for  a  season"  (Heb. 
II  :  25).  With  Paul  one  will  say,  "For 
our  light  affliction  which  is  but  for  a  mo- 
ment worketh  for  us  a  far  more  exceeding 
and  eternal  weight  of  glory;  while  zve  look 
— mark  this  qualification — not  at  the  things 
which  are  seen,  but  at  the  things  which  are 
not  seen  "  (2  Cor.  4  :  17,  18). 

One  of  the  richest  spiritual  biographies 
known  to  the  writer  is  that  of  Madam  Baron- 


of  fmtggtong [6i] 

ess  Bunsen.  Her  life  was  lived  for  many- 
years  in  association  with  her  distinguished 
husband  in  the  foremost  court  society  of 
Rome,  London,  and  in  various  German 
cities.  Her  home  was  the  resort  of  states- 
men, historians,  scholars,  and  artists,  em- 
bracing also  eminent  Christian  personages 
of  her  time. 

That  which  makes  this  biography  so  in- 
valuable from  a  Christian  point  of  view, 
is  that  throughout  the  very  remarkable 
correspondence  that  fills  the  volume,  car- 
ried on  with  the  great  variety  of  charac- 
ters in  different  spheres  of  life,  as  well  as 
with  her  own  children.  Madam  Bunsen's 
sentiment  abounds  with  clear,  sane,  and 
biblical  expositions  of  the  divine  care  under 
which  all  life  is  lived  which  is  filial  toward 
God.  In  one  of  her  letters  to  her  mother 
while  yet  a  young  Christian,  this  remarkable 
woman  wrote :  "  I  have  begun  the  new  year 
with  a  degree  of  cheerfulness  of  spirit  which 
I  would  not  by  any  consideration  contrive 
to  lessen,  wherefore  I  have  allowed  myself 


[62] xrbe  5)ix)ine  TRtQbt 

to  enjoy  unrestrained  a  feeling  which  I  am 
thankful  to  say  grows  upon  me  every  year, 
of  confidence,  not  in  the  prosperity  of  life, 
but  in  the  power  of  going  through  with 
God's  assistance  whatever  life  may  bring: 
going  through  not  as  a  beast  of  burden 
groaning  under  the  weight  imposed,  but  as 
a  joyful  bearer  of  the  ark  of  the  sanctuary. 
Human  strength  alone  is  as  insufficient  to 
support  the  weight  of  a  feather  as  of  a 
mountain,  but  with  that  aid  which  is  ever 
granted  to  them  that  ask,  the  mountain  will 
not  be  more  oppressive  than  the  feather." 

To  a  friend  who  doubted  if  he  could  en- 
dure the  difficulties  of  his  position,  she 
wrote,  "  Screw  your  courage  to  the  sticking 
place,  and  let  life  bring  what  it  will;  say 
to  yourself :  '  It  shall  not  get  the  better  of 
me.'  To  be  brought  into  a  contingency  de- 
pended not  upon  yourself;  to  get  out  of  a 
contingency  depends  not,  or  may  not  de- 
pend, upon  yourself;  but  to  be  master  of 
the  crisis  and  stand  upright  before  it — that 
is  your  part. 


of  nniggtong  [63] 

Breast  the  wave,  Christian,  where  it  is  strongest; 
Look  for  day.  Christian,  when  night  is  longest." 

This  reality  of  providence  is  as  available 
for  the  most  poverty-stricken  pariah  of 
India,  as  it  is  for  the  most  favored  of  civil- 
ized peoples.  As  this  is  a  potential  value, 
however,  all  need  to  be  brought  to  realize 
that  they  must  co-operate  with  the  truth  of 
providence  if  they  are  to  gain  the  blessing 
provided  in  it. 

This  doctrine  of  providence  is  grounded 
in  two  things ;  first,  in  the  nature  of  the 
divine  love  which  ever  outreaches  to  im- 
part to  man  God's  own  type  of  blessedness 
in  the  human  life's  unfolding;  and  second, 
in  the  fact  that  he  who  is  en  rapport  with 
such  a  God,  need  expect  nothing  inhar- 
monious with  his  highest  and  ultimate  wel- 
fare to  occur  to  him.  No  other  system  than 
Christianity  has  such  a  doctrine;  it  cannot 
have,  because  no  other  system  has  such  a 
conception  of  Deity,  nor  such  a  concep- 
tion of  possible  harmony  with  the  Deity. 

Doubtless,  such  a  doctrine,  even  by  most 


[64] XTbe  Btvlne  TRtQbt 

Christians,  is  but  feebly  believed;  and 
human  nature  often  rebelliously  resists  it 
in  its  practical  bearings — resists  it  from 
sheer  wilfulness  and  pride.  Probably  more 
unrest  and  mental  misery  arise  from  dis- 
trust of  and  anger  against  God  concerning 
untoward  events  in  life  than  from  any  other 
single  cause.  There  is  a  strain  against  the 
Infinite.  And  yet  this  Christian  doctrine  is 
an  elementary  thing  in  the  system  of  Chris- 
tian truth.  It  is  not  fatalism.  Christianity 
puts  no  embargo  on  one's  bettering  his  con- 
ditions, if  he  justly  can ;  "  it  encourages  to 
this."  Whenever,  however,  the  circum- 
stances of  life  or  its  sorrows  impose  limita- 
tions or  afflictions  beyond  man's  power  to 
avert  or  remove,  they  are  to  be  regarded  as 
divinely  permitted  at  least,  if  not  imposed, 
for  divine  though  mysterious  reasons;  and 
when  trustfully  submitted  to,  from  that  mo- 
ment they  becorne  providential  in  their 
moral  bearings,  their  graciousness  of  pur- 
pose, and  have  an  entirely  changed  signifi- 
cance and  value.    God  may  not  ordain  the 


ot  nntggtong [65] 

event  in  itself  which  occasions  trial,  e.  g.,  ■ 
the  sale  of  Joseph  into  Egypt;  but  he 
does  ordain  the  moral  bearings  of  even 
such  an  event  in  itself  sinful,  upon  those 
who  are  disciplined  thereby,  and  thus  over- 
rules the  evil  (Gen.  50  :  20).  There  is  of 
course  a  sovereign  element  in  the  appoint- 
ment of  human  conditions  which  our  phi- 
losophy cannot  sound,  but  which  we  must 
take  on  trust.  The  Christian  thing  to  do  /  -^ 
when  events  are  plainly  beyond  one's  power 
of  control  or  understanding  is  devoutly  to 
accept  them,  however  trying  and  however 
mysterious,  and  seek  for  their  moral  les- 
sons. That  faith  is  yet  in  the  infantine 
stage  which  has  not  realized  that  the  rich- 
est blessing  in  the  grace  of  Christ  comes 
through  the  school  of  trial.  The  teachings 
of  Jesus,  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  the  Epis- 
tles, and  indeed  the  whole  Bible  is  shot 
through  and  through  with  this  teaching  as 
to  providence.  The  exact  form  of  outward 
circumstance  in  itself  considered  then, 
would  seem  to  have  little  or  nothing  to  do 

E 


[66]  ube  mvinc  IRtgbt 

with  the  measure  of  the  real  values  in  life. 
The  apostle  was  able  to  say,  "  I  have  learned 
in  whatsoever  state  I  am,  therein  to  be  con- 
tent"  (Phil.  4  :  II).  The  reason  of  this 
deep  confidence  was  that  through  the  very- 
pressure  of  the  events  of  life,  and  under  the 
guidance  of  that  Spirit,  who  is  also  imma- 
nent within  the  wheels  of  all  circumstance, 
Paul  knew  he  was  finding  his  way  into 
God's  eternal  plan  for  him.  He  knew  that 
the  divine  ordainment  was  behind  him  and 
that  things  must  work  for  good. 

He  fixed  thee  'mid  this  dance 

Of  plastic  circumstance, 

This  present,  thou  forsooth,  would'st  fain 

arrest; 
Machinery  just  meant 
To  give  thy  soul  its  bent. 
Try  thee,  and  turn  thee  forth  sufficiently 

impressed. 
Look  not  thou  down  but  up; 
To  uses  of  a  cup. 

The  festal  board  lamps  flash  and  trumpets  peal, 
The  new  wine's  foaming  flow, 
The  Master's  lips  aglow: 
Thou  heaven's  consummate  cup,. 
What  needest  thou  with  earth's  wheel? 


of  nntgstong  [67] 

Every  man's  life  in  its  last  analysis  is  a 

plan  of  God.^   By  him  the  end  is  seen  from 

the  beginning.     Every  disap-    ^^^^^  ^^^,^ 

pointment  is  his  appointment ;        ^**^  ^ 
^  ^^  Iplan  of  ©o& 

every  sorrow  is  provided  for, 
every  hair  of  one's  head  numbered,  and 
every  tear  put  into  God's  bottle.  For  every 
deprivation  and  bereavement  rightly  re- 
ceived, there  is  provided  a  compensation  in 
the  grace  of  God,  so  that  when  life's  course 
shall  have  been  run,  it  will  appear  that  "  the 
sufferings  of  this  present  time  are  not 
worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  that 
shall  be  revealed  in  us"  (Rom.  8  :  18). 

How  adapted  then  is  Christianity  wher- 
ever it  finds  human  life  and  under  whatso- 
ever conditions,  to  commend  itself  to  all,  for 
it  has  assurance  that  its  grace  covers  all  the 
exigencies  and  extremities  of  life.  It  under- 
takes not  only  to  justify  the  soul  from  its 
sins,  but  also  to  redeem  and  upHft  the  whole 
life  course;    to  guide  it  into  a  career,  and 

1  See  Bushnell's  great  sermon  on  "  I  girded  thee 
(Cyrus),  though  thou  hast  not  known  me"    (Isa.  45  :  5). 


[68]  ubc  mvinc  IRtQbt 

on  to  a  divine  goal.  The  veteran  missionary 
Dr.  Hiram  Bingham,  now  of  Honolulu,  but 
who  has  spent  a  half-century  in  missionary 
service  in  the  Gilbert  Islands,  once  wrote  of 
his  isolation  in  those  islands,  "  I  have  at 
times  been  so  cut  off  from  the  home  land 
that  at  times  letters  reached  me  only  after 
intervals  of  eighteen  months.  I  have  been 
much  alone,  but  never  lonely."  So  deep  was 
his  abiding  assurance  of  the  divine  presence 
with  him.  Surely  then,  if  the  human  soul 
anywhere,  in  any  land,  would  find  a  religion 
which  promises  to  take  account  of  the  hard 
and  painful  externals  in  its  life  and  lot,  and 
will  turn  them  all  into  present  and  eternal 
well-being,  where  can  it  so  well  find  it  as  in 
Christianity? 

Nor  has  the  Christian  missionary  found 
his  whole  message  until  he  is  prepared  to 
teach  all  suffering  souls  whom  he  touches, 
this  corollary  of  his  gospel  of  grace;  that 
on  the  grounds  of  the  gospel  he  brings,  each 
one  may  be  certainly  blessed  by  accepting 
his  lot  in  life  however  circumstanced,  as 


of  fintggtong  [69] 

after  all  enswathed  in  the  divine  love,  care, 
and  purpose.  The  very  woes  that  afflict  him 
are  intended  to  be  for  him  the  very  gentlest 
treatment  which  on  the  whole  God  himself 
can  use,  in  order  to  work  out  for  him  the 
highest  good. 

A  valuable,  recently  published  book  is 
"  The  Altar  Fire,"  by  Arthur  Christopher 
Benson,  son  of  the  archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, and  one  of  the  editors  of  the  "  Letters 
of  the  late  Queen  Victoria."  This  book  pur- 
ports to  be  the  diary  of  a  person  who  started 
in  life  with  fortune,  gained  fame  as  an  au- 
thor, was  enjoying  life  with  his  charming 
family,  but  to  whom  all  sorts  of  disasters 
afterward  came.  He  lost  his  power  to 
write  books,  was  bereft  of  his  family  and, 
fortune,  suffered  nervous  exhaustion,  hypo- 
chondria, and  yet  finally  emerged  into  a 
spiritual  tranquillity  which  was  entirely  in- 
dependent of  all  the  conditions  which  pre- 
viously had  seemed  so  essential  to  him.  He 
simply  learned  through  the  school  of  trial 
to  put  himself  humbly  and  confidently  in 


[to] Uhc  Divine  IRtgbt 

the  hands  of  the  God  who  made  him.  He 
reasoned,  ''  I  cannot  amend  myself,  but  I 
can  at  least  co-operate  with  God's  loving 
will.  I  can  stumble  onward  with  my  hand 
in  his,  Hke  a  timid  child  with  a  strong  and 
loving  father.  I  may  wish  to  be  lifted  in 
his  arms.  I  may  wonder  why  he  does  not 
have  more  pity  on  my  frailty,  but  can  be- 
lieve that  he  is  leading  me  home,  and  that 
his  way  is  best  and  nearest." 

One  of  the  strange  evidences  of  the  truth 
of  providence,  is  the  fact  that  those  very 
Christians  in  whom  is  found  the  strongest 
faith  in  the  doctrine,  are  those  who  have 
suffered  most  in  the  school  of  life.  Indeed, 
only  such  can  prove  the  doctrine  in  its 
deepest  worth. 

Another  element  in  Christianity  which 
adapts   it  to  become   the   universal   world 

HfmBattbe     ^ehgion    is    its    ultimate    aim. 

©oMifee  in      That  aim  is  to  create  the  god->^ 
Cbaracter 

like    in    personal     character. 

The  confidence  that  such  a  goal  may  be 

reached  is  grounded  in  the  fact  that  the 


of  niltggtong [71] 

work  of  Christ  set  forth  in  the  Scriptures 
on  its  subjective  side  is  to  form  Christ  him- 
self within  the  soul  as  "  the  hope  of  glory." 
This  hope  of  glory  becomes  such  a  hope 
because  through  conformation  to  the  Christ 
within  the  spirit,  the  outcome  of  God's 
method  of  recentering  the  soul  within  him- 
self, the  soul  becomes  possessed  of  a  God- 
consciousness,  which  itself  is  glory  begun 
below.  Man  was  created  to  become  a  son 
of  God,  actually  so,  as  potentially  every 
man,  despite  the  fall,  is  still  such  a  son  by 
virtue  of  his  creation.  The  glorified  Christ 
as  the  second  Adam,  the  firstborn  of  many 
brethren,  is  the  norm  of  his  sonship.  By 
regeneration  sons  and  daughters  are  di- 
vinely begotten  into  Christ's  moral  image; 
and  so  there  results  a  new  and  higher  race 
— the  new-Adamic  race — greater  and  fuller 
than  the  first  Adamic,  by  as  much  as  the 
second  creative  work  is  higher  than  the  first. 
In  this  our  mortal  sphere,  a  disciplinary 
stage  of  being,  "  it  is  not  yet  made  manifest 
what  we  shall  be.     We  know  that  if  we  shall 


[72] Ubc  Divine  IRlgbt 

be  manifested,  we  shall  be  like  Him — have 
our  epiphany — for  we  shall  see  him  even  as 
he  is"  (i  John  3:2).  Our  new  corpo- 
reality will  resemble  his  own  at  the  right 
hand  of  God.  We  shall  be  glorified  in  body, 
soul,  and  spirit.  We  shall  be  godlike  in 
character,  and  godlike  also  in  the  exercise 
of  powers  and  functions  of  which  we  now 
have  little  conception. 

Thus  our  salvation  is  no  artificial  thing. 
While  it  begins  objectively  through  the  at- 
tachment of  our  faith  to  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh,  and  dying  and  living  again  for  us  in 
a  vicarious  way,  so  that  our  confidence  is 
reawakened  to  trust  and  hope  in  him;  yet 
when  the  process  is  complete,  we  shall  find 
ourselves  personally  transformed  into  his 
real  moral  likeness,  so  that  our  character 
itself  will  stand  forth  a  finished  new  created 
product,  a  character  godlike.  The  soul  will 
then  have  a  new  spontaneity  of  righteous- 
ness which  will  loathe  sin  forever.  By  ex- 
ercise in  this  new  freedom  the  soul  even 
here  progressively  by  second  nature  becomes 


of  natggtons [73] 

godlike.  This  will  at  last  be  a  righteous- 
ness as  voluntary  as  Christ's  own,  such  as 
in  the  fulness  of  the  divine  loyalty  he  ex- 
pressed in  the  exclamation,  ''  I  delight  to  do 
thy  will,  O  my  God  "  (Ps.  40  :  8). 

What  system  of  religion  holds  out  a  hope 
like  this  for  sinful  man?  Other  systems 
than  Christ's  speak  of  some  Nirvana,  little 
else  than  non-existence,  a  moral  negation  at 
the  best,  or  of  purgatorial  cleansings,  filled 
with  pain  and  torment,  or  of  endless  trans- 
migrations extended  through  long  eons  of 
agonized  probations,  wherein  man  may 
doubtfully  hope  to  emerge  into  ultimate  but 
vague  felicity.  It  is  left  for  the  religion  of 
Christ  alone  to  negative  all  these  heartless, 
abortive,  despairing  destinies,  and  to  offer 
us  in  lieu  thereof  a  hope  as  certain  and 
natural  to  us  as  Christ's  own  in  which  we 
are  his  joint  heirs. 

But  granting  that  the  Christianity  of 
which  we  have  been  speaking  is  adapted  to 
be  the  absolute  world  religion,  may  it  be 
legitimately    and    everywhere    propagated? 


[74]  Ube  Mvinc  IRtgbt 

This  matter  of  propagating  Christianity  is 
attended  with  doubts  in  some  minds.  This 
propagation  implies  a  relation  to  other  re- 
ligions more  or  less  subversive  of  their  very 
existence,  at  least  in  their  present  forms. 
Hence  many  are  questioning  the  right  of 
Christianity  to  place  itself  with  aggressive 
activity  in  relations  which  disparage  at  least 
those  ancient  systems.  With  this  question 
I  shall  deal  in  the  second  part  of  this  dis- 
cussion, to  which  I  now  pass. 


part  n 

Zbc  IRt^bt  of  the  Cburcb  to 
propagate  tbis  IReltGton 

J.  WAS  lately  asked  in  a  symposium  on  mis- 
sions to  answer  the  question :   "  Has  Chris- 
causcs        tianity  the  moral  right  to  sup- 

0^  tbc         plant  the  ethnic  faiths  ?  "    The 
Questioning 

influences  which  give  rise  to 

such  a  query,  often  in  the  public  mind,  are 

mainly    two:     the  conception    of    missions 


ot  DQlggtong  [75] 

represented  by  questionable  forms  of  mis- 
sionary zealotry,  and  prevalent  thought-ten- 
dencies in  comparative  religion.  Of  all  re- 
ligions Christianity  undoubtedly  is  the  most 
missionary.  Its  aggressiveness  proves  dis- 
turbing. The  right  of  Christianity  to  en- 
croach upon  other  systems  is  doubted.  In 
viewing  the  contest  speculatively,  ere  men 
are  aware,  sympathy  is  engendered  for  one 
type  of  these  faiths  as  against  another.  A 
spirit  of  championship  then  springs  up, 
zeal  for  partisan  victory  obscures  the  im- 
portance of  the  truth  at  stake,  and  the  issue 
is  likely  to  be  viewed  as  if  it  were  a  game, 
to  be  lost  or  won  on  the  field  of  athletics. 
If  the  question  were,  "  Has  any  form  of  re- 
ligion a  moral  right  to  play  at  religion  as  a 
game  ?  "  we  answer,  "  No  !  "  The  real  issue 
involved  is  vastly  deeper  and  more  seri- 
ous. There  is  something  more  than  a  tour- 
nament on. 

The  fact  that  the  question  of  the  legiti- 
macy of  missions  prevails  in  many  minds  is 
sufficient  reason  why  it  should  be  squarely 


[76] XTbe  Wivinc  IRtQbt 

faced  and  met.  The  answer  to  it  profoundly 
affects,  not  only  Christian  missions,  but 
moral  effort  of  every  kind. 

It  is  important  at  the  outset  to  establish 
an  understanding  of  terms.  To  attempt  to 
answer  the  question  propounded  in  its  pres- 
ent form  would  be  to  increase  a  confusion 
already  existing.  From  the  query  as  above 
stated,  it  is  necessary  to  eliminate  at  least 
three  grave  assumptions : 

I.  That  the  ethnic  faiths  as  they  now  ex- 
ist as  really  as  the  Christian,  although  in  a 

less    degree,    are    of    divine 
^ll{eIea^in^  .    . 

Bssumptions     origm. 

2.  That  Christian  mission- 
ary effort  is  intrinsically  the  assertion  of  a 
right — a  right  asserted  as  against  other 
natural  rights. 

3.  That  true  missionary  effort,  by  first  in- 
tention at  least,  seeks  to  supplant  that  which 
is  really  defensible. 

When  these  erroneous  presuppositions  are 
disposed  of,  and  the  case  is  stated  as  its  na- 
ture requires,  we  shall  have  gone  far  toward 


ot  miiseions  [77] 

simplifying  the  answer  to  the  question  be- 
fore us. 

As  to  the  first  element  of  misconception, 
it  is  implied  that  the  ethnic  faiths  have  an 
equal  standing  with  Chris- 
tianity  m  the  court  of  com-  ^^^  co=orMnatc 
parative  religion;  and,  if  so,  ^^^^^^^ 
that  they  have  such  standing 
because  of  their  inherent  meritorious  quali- 
ties— such  qualities  as  meet  the  real  needs  of 
the  people  now  holding  them.  But  this  in- 
ference is  due  to  a  priori  considerations  and 
begs  the  question  involved.  Such  an  infer- 
ence concretely  expressed  means  to  say,  for 
example,  that  Christianity  and  Hinduism 
equally  arose  out  of  purely  natural  antece- 
dent causes ;  that  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
Hinduism  is  as  perfectly  adapted  to  meet  the 
needs  of  Hindus  as  Christianity  is  to  meet 
the  needs  of  Anglo-Saxons ;  that  God  is  as 
really  the  author  of  one  set  of  adaptations 
as  of  the  other ;  that  there  is  nothing  more 
supernatural  in  Christianity  than  in  Hindu- 
ism ;  and  that  therefore  the  attempt  of  Occi- 


/ 


[78] Ube  mvinc  IRtpbt 

dentals  to  enter  Asia  and  to  readjust  Hindu 
conditions  to  Christian  ideals  is  an  imperti- 
nence and  intrusion.  Theirs  for  them  are  as 
good  as  ours  for  us.  Any  such  plea  en- 
tered for  the  non-Christian  reHgions  grows 
out  of  hidden  premises — premises  that  are 
assumed,  but  are  really  the  very  things  that 

^  need  to  be  proved.  Such  plea,  so  common 
in  our  day,  is  a  deduction  of  the  so-called 
"  historical  method,"  just  now  so  much  in 
vogue.  It  is  a  corollary  of  the  doctrine  of 
evolution   extremely   viewed.     But   a   just 

^  view  of  the  evolutionary  principle  warrants 
no  such  corollary,  and  the  deduction  is  an 
abuse  of  the  historical  method,  however 
legitimate  that  method  is  within  certain 
limits. 

In  the  view  of  its  champions,  the  "  histor- 
ical method  "  is  thought  to  be  the  one  great 
abuse  of  tbe    ^"^  decisive  medium  of  knowl- 

Wistorfcai      q^q-q  •  whereas  there  are  other 
method  '^ 

methods  of  vastly  more  worth. 

One  has  spoken  of  this  method  substantially 

as  follows : 


ot  nUisBtons  [79] 

■  llli^— ^—i ■■—■ ^  — lllil——HI»l»IIIHI»IIIW»«IHIH  [[■IIIIIIIIHWIIMMim— ■IIIIIIIIH  — 

It  assumes  to  deterniinc  what  is  by  what  has 
been;  it  elucidates  the  law  of  man's  moral  nature 
by  the  principles  which  are  supposed  to  have 
governed  the  anthropoid  ape ;  the  authority  of  the 
Bible  by  going  back  to  the  ghost-and-spirit  wor- 
'  ship  which  are  supposed  to  be  its  real  genesis. 
The  nature  and  value  of  each  present  fact  is  de- 
termined by  its  supposed  historic  origin  and  de- 
velopment. But  we  may  reverse  the  process ;  in- 
terpret the  monkey  by  the  man ;  get  light  on  the 
value  of  the  Hebrew  revelation  by  its  solution  of 
our  present  problems ;  .  .  .  look  for  the  Maker's 
mark  not  only  in  the  fire-mist,  but  in  the  structure 
of  the  moral  organism.  .  .  It  is  often  a  matter  of 
great  advantage  not  to  have  to  wait  for  the 
"  historic  method  "  to  be  perfected  and  corrected ; 
for  example,  when  a  man  has  an  attack  of  ap- 
pendicitis, the  knowledge  of  the  vermiform  ap- 
pendix as  it  now  is,  yields  a  far  more  valuable 
contribution  to  the  solution  of  his  case  than  the 
entire  history  of  that  organ.^ 

And  especially,  we  would  add,  when  the  his- 
tory in  question  is  most  hypothetical. 

Now,  respecting  the  origin  of  the  ethnic 
religions,  it  must  at  the  least  be  said  that 
they  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  a  single, 
uniform,  upward  evolution ;  their  genesis  is 

*  John  Henry  Denison,  in  an  article  in  the  "  Atlantic 
Monthly"  for  June,  1906,  entitled,  "The  White  Death 
of  the  Soul." 


[8o] Ube  mvinc  IRlgbt 

composite.  Even  though  some  or  all  of 
them  started  with  elements  of  truth,  they 
now  represent  dreadful  deteriorations  and 
corruptions  of  an  earlier  purity.  Doubtless, 
underlying  all  these  religions  there  are  some 
elements  of  natural,  and  hence  of  true,  re- 
ligion: certain  intuitions,  suggestions  of 
conscience,  and  hints  of  nature  conveying 
much  needful  knowledge  of  God.  "  These 
not  having  the  law  (revelation)  are  a  law 
(revelation)  unto  themselves." 

This  form  of  light  is  the  common  prop- 
erty of  all  men  with  or  without  a  book 
revelation;  and  it  emanates 
B  OoBpei       f  j.Qj^  Christ,  the  eternal  Log- 

Bntecebcnt      os.     Moreover,  this  form  of 

to  all 
iReitgioua  Cults  light  affords  even  an  elemen- 
tary gospel,  as  Paul  in  Rom. 
2  :  4-10  clearly  intimates,  however  poorly 
apprehended  or  appropriated  that  gospel  is. 
If  men  had  given  credence  to  such  early 
gospel  hints  as  were  afforded  by  Abel's  altar 
or  by  their  own  deeper  intuitions;  if  they 
had   so  believed   as   to   act   on   their   best 


of  miggtong [8i] 

belief — for  such  and  such  only  is  faith — they 
would  have  been  saved  in  some  infantine 
degree,  and  the  systems  of  religion  repre- 
sented by  them  would  have  been  purer. 
Among  antediluvians,  for  example,  Noah 
had,  as  Dr.  William  Ashmore  has  said,  "  no 
monopoly  of  gopher  wood."  There  was  a 
monopoly  in  unbelief,  except  as  Noah  and 
his  family  were  the  shining  exceptions  to  it. 
Doubtless,  had  others  than  Noah  gone  to 
boat-building,  showing  faith  in  God's  pro- 
vision to  save,  they  would  have  been  pre- 
served with  Noah. 

But  no  truly  historic  account  of  the  ethnic 
religions  can  be  just  that  does  not  take  note 
of  the  persistent  tendencies  of 

,  .    .      ,     lEtbnfc  jpaitbs 

sm  to  pervert  man  s  origmal     iperverstons 
stock  of  truth.     Sin  has  dis-  ''  '"''J.l'^''''' 
torted  the  elements  of  primi- 
tive religion  with  which  the  ethnic  faiths 
started;   it  has  falsified  normal  conceptions 
of  both  God  and  man.    Sin  is  God-accusing 
as  well  as  self-justifying;  it  projects  its  own 
perverseness  upon  God.    "  I  knew  thee  that 

F 


[82]  ube  mvinc  IRtQbt 

thou  art  an  hard  man,"  said  the  man  in  the 
parable  (Matt.  25  :  24,  A.  V.).  He  really 
knew  nothing  of  the  kind.  He  himself  was 
the  "  hard  man,"  who  should  have  discerned 
a  truer  aspect  of  the  divine  character.  The 
God  of  this  man's  evil  imagination  was  a 
fiction.  Sin  has  thus  been  a  fruitful  means 
of  introducing  into  all  the  ethnic  religions 
fearful  perversions,  gross  deteriorations  of 
an  earlier  truth. 

Then  official  and  ecclesiastical  traditional- 
ism and  self-interest  have  left  their  marks 
upon  the  ethnic  religions.  This  has  been 
true  in  Judaism,  and  even  in  Christianity. 
Because  of  the  mischievous  effects  of  priest- 
craft and  clericalism,  Israel  lost  her  nation- 
ality and  Christianity  early  fell  from  her 
apostolic  estate,  and  has  but  slowly  re- 
covered. Surely  the  ethnic  faiths  have  not 
been  exempt  from  similar  and  as  degrading 
processes  of  deterioration. 

If  the  principle  of  evolution  as  a  factor 
has  played  a  part  in  the  development  of  re- 
ligious systems  and  activities,  retrogression 


of  mitggtong  [83] 

and  degeneracy  have  played  their  mischiev- 
ous part  also.  "  Broken  lights  "  of  the  true 
"  Sun  of  Righteousness  "  which  once  existed 
have  been  put  out.  They  have  been  extin- 
guished by  the  people's  grossness.  Through 
Brahmin  priest,  Taoist  conjurer,  Moham- 
medan dervish,  and  African  witch-doctor, 
that  "  Light  which  lighteth, every  man  as  he 
Cometh  into  the  world,"  has  been  turned  into 
darkness,  because  as  abnormal  religionists 
they  have  cast  a  shadow  on  the  sun.  Said 
Christ :  "  All  that  ever  came  before  me  are 
thieves  and  robbers."  That  which  was 
man's  original  heritage  in  the  eternal  world 
— the  essential  Christ — has  been  stolen 
away,  rendering  it  more  difficult  for  the  re- 
deeming God  to  do  his  intended  work. 

Satanic  influence  also  has  entered  in  to 
debase  the  ethnic  faiths.  The  long  history  of 
man  is  in  line  with  the  biblical  account  of  an 
irrepressible  and  tragic  conflict  between  the 
'*  seed  of  the  woman,"  the  Son  of  man,  the 
last  Adam,  and  the  old  serpent,  the  devil. 
It  is  therefore  impossible  for  us  to  bUnd  our 


^ 


[84] Ube  g)tvtne  TRtpbt 

eyes  to  the  corrupting  influence  of  diabolic 
agency  upon  the  primeval  order. 

A  day  spent  in  Benares,  Canton,  or  Kyoto 
amid  the  temples  of  idolatry  and  shame  and 
witchcraft  will  convince  any  candid  observer 
that  the  same  Satanic  influence  which  in 
Bible  times  animated  Jannes  and  Jambres, 
Elymas,  Simon  Magus,  and  the  Sons  of 
Sceva,  in  modern  pagan  life  also  often 
makes  religionists  drunk  with  its  sorceries. 
Let  one  who  doubts  read  a  work  by  the  late 
Dr.  John  L.  Nevius,  a  foremost  Presby- 
terian missionary  in  China,  on  the  demon- 
ology  of  that  land.  The  national  symbol  of 
China  is  a  dragon.  Chinese  Taoism,  which 
once  represented  a  sort  of  Logos  doctrine, 
has  so  deteriorated  as  to  be  little  else  but  the 
expression  of  demonism. 

A  second  implication  of  the  question  pro- 
pounded is  that  Christian  missions  in  them- 
selves are  intrinsically  the  assertion  of  a 
right,  as  against  other  natural  rights.  To 
conceive  of  such  missionary  effort  as  springs 
from  the  mind  of  Christ  as  the  assertion  of 


of  flQtsgtong [85] 

a  mere  right  is  to  put  such  effort  on  too  low 
a  plane  altogether. 

But  Christian  missions  are  not  concerned 
to  defend  themselves  as  merely  legitimate; 
they  are  more  than  that ;  they  cbristian 
are  an  outreach  of  grace  in  ^If^Z^ 
behalf  of  others;  efforts  to  ^aeQttimate 
save  men  unto  God  and  unto  themselves, 
and  not  to  mere  Western  sectarianism.  Said 
Paul  as  he  came  to  the  Romans,  through 
storm  and  shipwreck  and  imprisonment : 
"  For  I  long  to  see  you  that  I  may  impart 
unto  you  some  spiritual  gift."  Christianity 
is  not  competitive ;  it  never  exults  over 
another  system  because  it  is  a  rival,  nor 
seeks  a  victory  for  victory's  sake.  It  rather 
yearns  over  the  inadequate  system  to  make 
good  all  it  fails  to  do ;  it  reaches  beyond  the 
devotee  to  the  personality  of  the  divine  ideal 
of  Christ's  purchase  to  render  it  godlike  in 
being  and  destiny. 

In  an  address  given  by  ex-Secretary  Fos- 
ter in  Carnegie  Music  Hall,  New  York — an 
address  widely  repeated  on  the  secretary's 


[86]  XTbe  mvinc  TRt^bt 

return  from  a  round-the-world  tour  a  few- 
years  since,  he  substantially  said  that  if  he 
were  asked  by  what  right  Christian  America 
had  gone  out  into  the  various  lands  of  Asia 
to  disturb  and  reconstruct  systems  and  in- 
stitutions in  those  lands  known  as  heathen, 
his  reply  would  be :  "  The  right  to  commu- 
nicate to  others  benefits  too  good  to  keep." 
The  answer  cannot  be  gainsaid.  The  legiti- 
macy of  foreign  missions  as  the  profoundest 
agency  in  the  ongoing  civilization  of  the 
world,  is  beyond  all  question,  if  it  is  not  pros- 
ecuted as  a  partisan  crusade  of  one  re- 
ligious system  as  against  another,  but  rather 
as  such  a  renewing  and  constructive  potency 
as  seeks  to  bring  blessing  to  all  the  world. 
Christianity  has  in  it  elements  of  such  trans- 
cendent value  as  are  adapted  to  every  one 
on  earth.  And  so  the  conclusion  is  irresisti- 
ble, that  by  the  same  intelligence  and  will 
that  brought  them  into  being,  they  are  in- 
tended for  every  one  on  earth.  He  who  dis- 
cerns this  adaptation  himself  must  share  in 
executing  the  intention,  or  become  guiltier 


of  mtggjong [87] 

than  before  for  the  estate  of  his  brother- 
man. 

Then  as  to  the  third  assumption:  True 
Christian  missions  do  not  attempt  to  sup- 
plant what  in  an  ethnic  faith 

mifssions 
is  in  itself  good  and  true.     In  Displace  iRotbmg 

Confucianism,  for  example,  it 
discerns  between  the  true  and  the  false,  or 
the  inadequate,  and  seeks  not,  by  any  first 
intention  at  least,  to  destroy  the  inadequate. 
So  far  as  there  are  in  all  men  elements  of 
natural  religion,  true  in  themselves,  there  is 
no  occasion  to  displace  them.  Such  residue 
of  natural  religion,  wherever  found,  is  to  be 
complemented,  fulfilled  by  "  the  true  light 
which  now  shineth."  Christianity  in  its 
normal  exercise  acts  on  the  baser  elements 
of  other  systems  as  quicksilver  acts  on  pul- 
verized gold-bearing  quartz;  it  gathers  up 
the  particles  of  precious  metal  hidden  in  the 
coarser  element.  In  this  process  the  rock 
is  discarded,  but  there  is  no  contempt  of  any 
real  worth.  As  the  quicksilver  fulfils  the 
quartz  for  bullion  or  coin-current,  so  Chris- 


[88] zbc  mvinc  TRtQbt 

tianity  brings  to  its  own  the  truth  latent  in 
the  ethnic  systems. 

Now,  with  these  unfortunate  confusions 
ehminated,  the  question  remaining  to  be  an- 
swered is  a  very  different  one  from  that 
propounded  to  us,  and  so  perplexing  to 
many  minds.  The  real  issue  amounts  to 
this :  Is  Christianity  warranted  in  imparting 
its  divine  grace  to  all  mankind,  and  thus 
realizing  to  them  the  values  hinted  or  in- 
cipient in  other  religions,  even  though  the 
process  in  the  end  will  discard  the  base  and 
harmful  elements  incumbering  them  ?  There 
can  be  but  one  answer  to  such  a  question — 
an  emphatic,  "  Yea,  verily." 

The  Christianity  of  the  New  Testament  is 
in  no  conflict  with  the  soul  in  any  land  or 
time  who  in  his  light  has  acted  penitently 
and  believingly  toward  his  highest  ideal. 
That  in  principle  is  faith,  whether  exercised 
by  an  Abraham,  a  Plato,  or  a  Spurgeon,  by 
an  Enoch,  a  Socrates,  or  a  George  Miiller. 
So  far  then  as  among  religionists  of  any 
cult,  the  faith-principle  has  existed — doubt- 


of  natggtong [89] 

less,  it  often  exists  despite  the  cult — God  has 
gracious  regard  for  it,  as  ethnic  religions 
rarely  have,  for  they  have  no  such  grace  as 
Christianity  has  to  offer. 

In  so  far,  indeed,  as  missionary  effort  has 
been  prosecuted  as  a  crusade  of  one  re- 
ligious system  against  another  with  a  view 
to  some  selfish  partisan  advantage,  un- 
doubtedly such  form  of  mission  work  has 
been  open  to  grave  objection.  Wherever  in 
any  human  being  or  society  any  inherent, 
natural  right  exists,  Christ  respects  that 
right.  It  is  a  thing  really  implanted  by  him- 
self; he  has  therefore  no  occasion  to  an- 
tagonize it;  he  would  rather  conserve  and 
nourish  it.  If  sad  abuses  have  often  marred 
religious  effort,  this  is  because  of  weakness 
in  the  agent,  and  not  because  the  extension 
of  truth  in  itself  is  evil.  When,  for  exam- 
ple, Francis  Xavier  went  to  the  East  and, 
not  content  to  share  his  spiritual  grace  with 
his  fellow-men,  proceeded  to  assert  the 
claim  of  his  imperial  master  at  Rome  to 
temporal  power  in  Japan,  he  violated  actual 


[9o]  Zbc  lS>ivinc  IRtgbt 

human  rights  in  the  interest  of  fictitious 
claims  of  a  usurping  master ;  it  naturally  re- 
sulted that  the  first  proselytes  were  turned 
upon  and  slain  by  thousands,  and  Chris- 
tianity was  interdicted  in  Japan  for  three 
hundred  years. 

In  1899,  under  severe  pressure  from 
France,  an  imperial  decree  was  secured 
from  the  Chinese  government  conferring  on 
Roman  Catholic  dignitaries  a  recognized  of- 
ficial status  in  China.  Accordingly,  French 
bishops  adopted  the  rank  of  Chinese  govern- 
ors, traveled  in  an  official  chair  with  bearers 
appropriate  to  that  rank,  with  attendants 
and  outriders,  and  had  a  cannon  discharged 
upon  their  arrival  and  departure.  When 
this  same  status  was  offered  to  Protestant 
missionaries  it  was  promptly  declined.  Thus 
they  avoided  blaspheming  the  whole  princi- 
ple of  rights  and  committing  missionary 
suicide.  Mr.  A.  R.  Colquhon  once  wrote: 
"  The  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  in  China  the 
seed  of  French  aggrandizement." 

In    1900    Germany,    though    Protestant, 


of  nntggtong [91] 

seized  the  district  of  Kiao  Chao  in  China  as 
an  indemnity  for  the  slaughter  of  two  Ger- 
man priests,  and  precipitated  the  Boxer 
uprising.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  men  ask: 
**  What  sort  of  missions  is  this?  " 

In  estimating  this  question  of  rights,  there 
is  danger  that  we  may  attribute  to  them  a 
false  reality.  A  custom  is  not  ^^j^^ 
necessarily  the  expression  of  a  "^ottona  of 
natural  right,  nor  is  it  a  true 
evolution  simply  because  it  is  ancient  or  in- 
digenous to  a  people.  There  is  a  difference 
even  in  pagan  lands  between  real  and  ficti- 
tious rights.  Would  any  man  in  his  senses 
claim  that  the  horrors  of  Hindu  widowhood, 
or  the  nameless  immoralities  of  Hindu  tem- 
ples, or  the  abominations  of  the  caste  system, 
as  described  by  Amy  Wilson-Carmichael  in 
her  book,  "  Things  as  They  Are,"  or  the  sys- 
tem of  plurality  of  wives  in  Mohammedan- 
ism, or  the  sodden  polyandry  of  Tibet,  rep- 
resent any  human  rights  before  God  or  men  ? 
Are  these  the  product  of  any  true  evolution? 
That  there  are  justifiable  ways  and  means 


[92] Xlbe  2)tv>tne  IRtgbt 

whereby  good  men  may   seek  to   remedy 
these  abuses  is  beyond  question. 

Respecting  any  true  element  in  the  re- 
ligion of  a  pagan  the  real  missionary  will 
say,  as  did  Paul  at  Athens :  "  What  there- 
fore ye  worship  in  ignorance  this  I  set  forth 
unto  you."  This  element  need  never  be 
antagonized  or  minimized ;  it  rather  is  to  be 
used  and  built  upon.  It  is  because  of  the 
existence  of  this  element  at  the  basis  of 
every  man's  moral  nature  that  Christianity 
can  make  a  beginning  anywhere,  at  any 
moment,  with  any  human  soul,  under  what- 
ever system  of  religion  it  exists.  For  exam- 
ple, if  in  a  heathen  temple  of  China  or  India 
I  behold  some  poor  devotee  in  sorrow, 
groaning  out  a  prayer  to  an  idol,  I  need  not 
check  that  cry;  it  represents  just  what  I  do 
when  in  some  dire  extremity  I  pour  out  my 
anguish  to  an  invisible  sympathy.  What  I 
need  to  do  is  to  know  the  language  of  this 
worshiper;  to  gain  his  confidence;  so  to 
get  into  sympathy  with  him  that  I  can  show 
him  his  error;   to  present  to  him  the  great 


of  rmtsstons  [93] 

divine  reality,  which  the  image  indeed  sug- 
gests, while  it  yet  obscures  the  God  for 
whom  he  gropes.  My  mission  to  that  man 
is  to  correct  and  fulfil  his  prayer. 

Of  course,  in  so  doing,  elements  in  this 
man's  religion  will  be  eliminated — yes,  even 

supplanted;    but  in  how  dif- 

^^  Displacement 

ferent  a  sense  from  that  con-  mot 

.        .   .  ,  Dfolence 

templated  by  a  mere  conten- 
tious attack!  This  better  kind  of  displace- 
ment is  a  wholly  legitimate  thing — nay, 
a  necessary  thing — if  health,  instead  of 
disease  is  to  prevail.  Does  displacement  in 
this  sense  do  violence  to  anything  sacred? 
True,  on  the  one  hand  there  is  an  elimina- 
tion of  error;  but  on  the  other  there  is 
a  fulfilment  of  truth.  Every  introduction 
of  pure  food  into  the  body  expels  from  the 
circulation  baser  elements,  while  it  nourishes 
the  vital  principle.  Then  why  should  he 
who  is  the  Bread  of  Life  be  denied  to  the 
spiritually  moribund,  even  though  it  is 
certain,  in  the  progress  of  the  new  spiritual 
health,  that  dead  matter  will  be  thrown  off  ? 


[94]  TTbe  WMnc  TRtgbt 

Such  changes  as  those  indicated  make  possi- 
ble the  ascending  order — the  true  evolution 
in  God's  universe. 

But  we  should  be  dealing  superficially 
with  the  real  issues  in  this  discussion  if  we 
did  not  point  out  the  unique  fact  that  Chris- 
tianity is  more  than  a  school  of  competitive 
thought,  in  the  sense  that  the  ethnic  faiths 
are  such — something  which  people  are  called 
upon  to  believe,  merely  intellectually  believe. 
Christianity  is  Christ;  and  he  is  more  than 
a  school  of  philosophy,  a  set  of  opinions. 
Christ  is  the  essential  reality — the  Eternal 
Word,  or  Reason — at  the  heart  of  the  uni- 
verse. He  can  be  experienced  and  known 
in  every  personal  soul,  irrespective  of  race 
distinction.  The  world  and  all  things  there- 
in were  created  through  Christ — on  account 
of  Christ,  according  to  Christ ;  and  they  are 
potentially  redeemed  to  him  also.  Hence 
the  secrets  of  life  and  the  world  can  be  in- 
terpreted to  and  understood  by  those  only 
who  are  in  him.  Moreover,  Christ  as  such 
a  reality  can  be  experienced  only  as  some- 


ot  fintsslong  [95] 

thing  deeper  than  theoretic  beliefs  is 
grasped;  only  as  the  whole  soul  is  sur- 
rendered to  him — intellect,  heart,  conscience, 
and  will.  When  man  is  thus  given  up  to 
Christ  in  a  vital  way,  by  the  divine  Spirit, 
Christ  authenticates  himself  to  the  human 
spirit  in  a  wondrous  way.  He  thus  ap- 
proves himself  as  the  final  need  of  man  as 
man.  Accordingly  he  can  indwell  man,  in 
consonance  with  any  racial  peculiarity. 
Mozoomdar  complained  that  the  Christ  who 
had  been  introduced  to  India  by  Western 
missionaries  was  an  Englishman  or  a  Yan- 
kee, whereas  he  was  an  Oriental  Christ,  and 
more  apprehensible  by  him  on  that  account.^ 
Dr.  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall  in  his  late  sec- 
ond course  of  lectures  in  the  East  empha- 
sized certain  adaptations  of  the  Oriental 
mind  to  the  experience  of  Christ — a  matter 
which  probably  needs  to  be  more  regarded 
in  wise  missionary  endeavor.  Although  I 
should  be  compelled  to  stop  far  short  of 


^  For   such   an   apprehension,    see    introduction   to   Mo- 
zoomdar's  "  The  Oriental  Christ." 


[96] Xlbe  5)iv>tne  IRigbt 

Doctor  Hall  in  his  estimate  of  the  character- 
istic expressions  of  that  mind. 

But  we  do  this  matter  of  the  extension  of 

Christianity  scant  justice  if  we  pause  with 

B  s)€cp       ^^^   defense   only  and  merely 

imperative     justify  its  rights.     There  is  a 

in  /Missions      ''  •;  ^ 

deep  imperative  in  it.  What 
is  this  movement  of  foreign  missions  ?  In  its 
simplest  form,  it  is  putting  down  a  high  type 
of  man  alongside  a  lower  one :  the  planting 
of  such  a  man  as  Moffat  among  the  Bechu- 
anas  of  South  Africa,  or  Paton  among  the 
cannibals  of  the  New  Hebrides,  or  Griffith 
John  among  the  Chinese.  Such  a  personal- 
ity is  a  reconstructive  force  and  placed 
where  he  is  needed.  He  translates  and  un- 
folds the  Christian  Scriptures  to  men  whose 
light  hitherto  has  been  but  as  starlight  to 
sunlight;  he  unveils  hitherto  hidden  rela- 
tions between  the  redeeming  God  and  his 
creatures,  who  need  more  than  all  else  to 
know  him,  his  person,  his  character,  his 
grace ;  he  puts  the  languages  of  rude  tribes 
into  writing — one  hundred  such  languages 


ot  nniggtong  [97] 

within  a  century — and  creates  new  litera- 
tures ;  he  brings  back  the  shattered  polyglot 
tribes  of  men  to  a  better  Shinar  than  that 
which  once  witnessed  the  confusions  of 
Babel.  The  missionary  puts  into  the  hands 
of  men  schools,  hospitals,  and  industries. 
He  affords  sane  treatment  to  disease,  relief 
to  the  opium  vice,  and  works  a  gradual  cure 
of  the  "  open  sore  of  the  world."  He  abates 
the  evils  of  Hindu  widowhood,  gathers 
thousands  of  children  into  orphanages,  and 
unbinds  the  crippled  feet  of  numberless  in- 
nocents. All  this  is  more  than  proselytism, 
mere  sect-making. 

Should  any  think  that  the  work  of  mis- 
sions is  an  arbitrary  forcing  of  issues  upon 
the  peoples  of  heathendom,  let 
him   hear   Mr.    Chester   Hoi-     ucetimontcs 
combe,  for  twenty  years  con- 
nected   with   the    diplomatic    staff   of   the 
United  States  in  China.    In  a  recent  article 
on  the  missionary  enterprise  he  thus  writes : 

To  talk  to  persons  who  choose  to  listen;  to 
throw   open   wide   the    doors    of   chapels    where 


[98] Ube  mvinc  TRtQbt 

natives  who  desire  may  hear  the  Christian  faith 
explained  and  urged  upon  their  attention;  to  sell 
at  half-cost  or  to  give  the  Bible  and  Christian 
literature  freely  to  those  who  may  care  to  read; 
to  heal  the  sick  without  cost ;  to  instruct  children 
whose  parents  are  desirous  that  they  should  re- 
ceive education — surely  none  of  these  constitute 
methods  or  practices  to  which  the  word  "force" 
may  be  applied,  under  any  allowable  use  of  the 
English  language.  .  .  There  is  no  difference  be- 
tween the  work  of  pioneer  preachers  in  the  far 
West,  that  of  "  settlement  workers  "  in  the  slums 
of  great  cities,  or  of  eloquent  pastors  of  wealthy 
and  fashionable  churches  in  the  Back  Bay  district 
of  Boston,  or  Fifth  Avenue  in  New  York,  and 
that  done  by  missionaries  in  China.  .  .  The  work 
is  absolutely  identical  in  character  and  method, 
differentiated  from  the  others  only  by  simple 
forms  of  presentation  in  order  to  reach  the  more 
effectively  minds  wholly  unfamiliar  with  the  truths 
presented. 

Even  as  I  write,  this  paragraph  of  a  letter 
sent  from  twenty  native  Christians  in  the  in- 
terior of  Africa  is  before  me : 

'  We  are  those  who  went  astray,  but  the  Lord 
did  not  leave  us.  He  sought  us  with  perseverance, 
and  we  heard  his  call  and  answered.  Now  we 
are  his  slaves.  We  had  three  teachers.  One  is  in 
Europe;  another  has  gone  to  Ikau;  and  this  one 
who  stays  with  us  shortly  goes  to  rest  in  Europe. 


ot  nniggtong [99] 

With  whom  shall  we  be  left?  It  is  good  that 
you  should  send  us  teachers  who  cause  us  to  be 
full  of  the  words  of  the  Father.  We  have  a 
desire  to  hear  your  teachings  of  Jehovah  God; 
and  we  have  a  desire  to  see  you  in  the  eyes,  but 
we  have  not  the  opportunity;  we  shall  have  it  in 
heaven. 

Does  this  sound  as  if  missionary  effort  had 
wrought  any  wrong  to  this  people  so  re- 
cently out  of  fetichism  and  cannibalism? 

If  we  to-day  have  no  right  to  plant  in 
India,  China,  and  Africa  the  seeds  of  in- 
tellectual and  moral  renewal,  then  our  an- 
cestors, who  were  pagans  in  the  forests  of 
North  Germany,  about  the  lagoons  of  Hol- 
land, and  on  the  moors  of  Britain,  were  in 
egregious  error  when  they  set  in  operation 
the  forces  which  translated  and  printed  the 
Bible,  founded  the  universities,  promulgated 
the  Magna  Charta,  brought  on  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  induced  the  successive  migrations 
from  Europe  whereby  the  New  World  was 
discovered,  peopled,  and  refashioned  into 
the  great,  free  republic  that  it  is. 

The  truth  is,  the  Christ  of  the  universe 


[loo] Xlbe  2)tvtne  IRtQbt 

cannot  be  himself  and  fail  to  do  what  is  in- 
volved in  his  gracious  incarnation ;  nor  can 
his  people  be  themselves  as  indwelt  by  him 
and  not  extend  this  incarnation  and  reenact 
his  gracious  deeds.  To  deny  the  legitimacy 
of  Christian  missions  is  to  deny  the  right  of 
holy  and  gracious  sovereignty  in  God,  the 
right  to  incarnate  himself  among  men,  and 
is  to  invalidate  the  legitimacy  of  all  best 
things  in  life  and  history;  and  that  is  to 
legitimize  their  opposites — to  assert  the 
rights  of  sin  and  deify  its  prince. 

The  final  question  then,  is  not  whether 

the   Christian   church  may   force   arbitrary 

^jj^  changes   upon   a   people,   but 

jFinai         whether,  through  moral  sua- 
©uestion  ° 

sion,  it  may  introduce  ideas, 

principles,  and  potencies  that  will  inevitably 
bring  about  wholesome  changes  for  which 
a  people  itself  in  the  end  will  be  grateful. 
Can  any  one  question  the  benignity  of  pres- 
ent endeavors  in  China  to  overcome  the 
worse  by  the  better?  And  is  not  China  in- 
creasingly friendly  to  such  results  ?    If  not, 


of  nntggtong  [loi] 

why  has  the  queen  dowager  aboHshed  the 
examinations  of  the  old  style  and  intro- 
duced instead  the  new  Western  education? 
Why  has  she  discouraged  foot  binding,  pro- 
mulgated a  Sabbath  rest-day,  and  taken  steps 
toward  the  abolition  of  the  opium  curse? 
Are  Chang  Chi  Tung,  author  of  "  China's 
Only  Hope,"  and  Yuen  Shih  Kai  less  pa- 
triotic because,  discerning  that  the  vitalities 
of  Western  nations  are  largely  due  to  mod- 
ern and  Christian  thought,  they  have  issued 
decrees  encouraging  the  millions  over  whom 
they  rule  now  to  study  the  new  world,  in- 
cluding not  only  the  modern  sciences,  but 
also  Western  constitutional  government? 
They  have  discovered  that  these  Western 
things  are  not  ethnic,  that  they  are  pan- 
ethnic,  and  so  of  course  that  they  are  Mon- 
golian. If  so,  then  any  displacement  they 
may  work  will  result  in  the  betterment  of 
China.  Of  course,  all  this  involves  over- 
throw, but  legitimate  overthrow  of  the  in- 
fantine by  the  mature,  of  the  false  by  the 
true,  and  ultimately  of  the  heathen  by  the 


[io2] Xlbe  'Bivinc  TRtgbt 

Christian.  For  this  purpose  the  world  and 
all  its  dispensations  were  made,  that  through 
turnings  and  overturnings  the  true  destinies 
of  mankind  consonant  with  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  divine  glory,  may  be  realized. 

With  such  aims  then,  Christian  missions 
are  chartered  to  go  anywhere  upon  this 
planet,  possessing  the  same  right  that  the 
Redeemer  himself  had  to  come  here,  and  to 
lay  hold  of  the  poor  Indian  fakir,  the 
wretched  superstitious  Chinese  Boxer,  the 
bestial  South  Sea  cannibal,  and  every  other 
type  of  human  degradation  peculiar  to 
"  Satan's  castaways,"  and  to  set  themselves 
to  the  task  of  displacing  all  error  by  truth, 
and  bringing  men  everywhere  to  their  own, 

A  charter  attested  as  is  that  of  Christian 
missions,  has  in  it  limitless  power  of  self- 
commendation,  and  may  well 

Cbrlstfanlt? 
seefts  mo       seek  universal  hospitality  for 

Conquest  of       .^  .  r^        ^ 

^Q^^^         its  renewmg  message.    Grant- 
ing that  Christianity  is  a  re- 
ligion possessing  the  qualities  I  have  claimed 
for  it  in  the  first  part  of  this  discussion,  can 


of  mtsstons [103] 

it  justify  itself  in  undertaking  anything  less 
than  the  presentation  of  these  values,  these 
potentialities  to  the  whole  world  ?  Can  it  do 
less  than  give  what  it  has  of  the  best? 

Until  recent  times,  if  we  except  the  apos- 
tolic period,  no  system  of  religion,  Oriental 
or  Occidental,  as  practically  held,  has  al- 
lowed itself  to  make  universal  effort  in  be- 
half of  others.  The  West  has  been  arrayed 
against  the  East,  and  the  East  against  the 
West,  in  a  mutual  exclusiveness  of  suspicion 
that  one  or  the  other  must  wholly  triumph  or 
wholly  succumb  to  the  mastery  of  the  other. 
As  a  mark  of  this  attitude,  recall  the  note- 
worthy work  of  Meredith  Townsend  on 
"  Asia  and  Europe."  Large  place  is  given  in 
this  book  to  the  question  whether  or  not  Eu- 
rope is  likely  to  conquer  Asia.  The  deeper 
question  to  which  Mr.  Townsend  does  little 
justice  is  this :  Has  Europe,  has  Christen- 
dom, the  moral  power — the  motive — to  bless 
the  world  in  such  a  way  that  neither  Europe 
nor  Asia  will  desire  any  conquest,  but  one  of 
love  and  grace? 


[io4] XTbe  Wivinc  TRtQbt 

President   Charles   Cuthbert   Hall    (now 

translated)  lately  returned  from  his  second 

visit  to  the  far  East.    On  this 
polttical  .  .     ,       ,      , 

lEmbarrasgmcnts  Visit  he  had  rare  opportunity 

to  feel  the  moral  pulse  of  In- 
dia, China,  and  Japan.  In  a  recent  address, 
given  before  the  American  Board  of  Com- 
missioners in  Cleveland,  he  expressed  the 
strong  conviction  which  all  Western  travel- 
ers in  those  lands  must  share,  that  one  of 
the  chief  hindrances  to  missionary  endeavor 
is  an  embarrassment  which  springs  out  of 
the  political  situation.  A  great  multitude  in 
all  those  lands  continue  to  stand  outside  the 
missionary  community  because,  however 
worthy  they  deem  the  enterprise  of  mis- 
sions in  itself  to  be,  they  do  not  feel  free 
to  identify  themselves  with  a  movement 
which  is  after  all  managed  by  Europeans,  or 
at  the  least  by  foreigners.  This  foreigner 
is  feared,  whether  he  comes  from  Britain, 
from  France,  from  Germany,  from  Russia, 
or  even  from  the  United  States. 

Many    Orientals    who    are    secretly    in 


of  nntggtong [105] 

sympathy  with  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
with  the  best  things  represented  by  the 
Christian  community,  are  still  loth  to  be 
known  as  Christians,  because  in  so  doing 
they  would  be  identified  by  their  countrymen 
with  foreigners  and  with  various  forms  of 
foreign  abuses.  These  abuses  have  re- 
peatedly stung  their  proud  spirits,  and  as 
Orientals  conscious  of  great  histories,  ex- 
tending over  millenniums  of  time  behind 
them,  they  do  not  easily  forget  those  dis- 
graceful chapters  in  the  treatment  accorded 
to  their  fathers  by  Western  adventurers  and 
freebooters.  These  influences,  together  with 
a  fair  modicum  of  race  prejudice,  common  to 
man,  hold  Orientals  back  from  a  committal 
to  a  religion  which  is  offered  them  from  the 
West,  although  the  religion  itself  is  really 
distinctively  Eastern. 

There  is  great  pertinency  in  the  point 
raised  by  Doctor  Hall,  a  point  which  Mr. 
Townsend  in  his  book  might  well  have  con- 
sidered with  real  magnanimity.  Neverthe- 
less, the  fact  remains  that  Christianity  in 


[ipq XTbe  Mvinc  TRtgbt 

itself,  in  its  essential  purity,  disconnected 
from  things  European  which  may  have  prej- 
udiced it,  is  the  hope  of  the  world,  be- 
cause it  is  a  religion  really  neither  Eastern 
nor  Western,  but  human,  pan-ethnic ;  and  as 
such  there  is  in  it  innate  capacity  to  bring 
the  manhood  of  both  hemispheres,  and  of 
all  races  into  conformity  to  the  character 
of  God  as  seen  in  his  Son  Jesus  Christ ;  and 
so  also  into  one  broad  spiritual  communion. 

From  this  point  of  view,  if  the  positions 
laid  down  in  the  preceding  pages  are  sound, 

ube  JBenfgn     ^^^  ^^^^^^  ^f  mere  physical  or 

ipurpose       racial  conquest  as  between  any 
of  nnigsions  -^ 

two  peoples,  is  wholly  irrele- 
vant. The  question  at  the  bottom  is:  Has 
any  people  on  the  globe  a  message  of  such 
benignity,  that  if  it  were  communicated  to 
all  the  races  of  the  world,  it  would  result 
in  a  federation  of  mankind,  a  federation 
deeper  than  the  mere  brotherhood  of  man; 
such  a  federation  as  would  eventually  be  a 
communion  of  saints?    It  is  our  firm  belief 


ot  fl[ltg6tong [107] 

that  Christianity  has,  nay,  that  Christ  him- 
self is,  that  message. 

The  work  of  foreign  missions  up  to  this 
time,  and  especially  during  the  past  century, 
has  been  that  of  blazing  the  path  to  the 
discovery  of  ways  and  means  whereby  hu- 
manity may  get  together  and  find  its  real 
salvation,  salvation  in  every  sense.  Grant 
that  in  the  efforts  made  some  blunders  have 
occurred;  that  the  means  employed  have 
been  inadequate ;  even  that  little  more  than 
the  sowing  of  the  seed  of  the  coming  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  has  been  accomplished. 
Yet  the  effort  has  been  an  earnest  one,  a 
sincere  one,  and  on  the  whole  an  effective 
one.  The  humblest  inquirers  in  this  realm 
are  those  who  have  labored  hardest  and 
sacrificed  most  to  get  their  message  under- 
stood among  the  idolatrous  and  agnostic 
races.  Our  contention,  however,  is  that 
nothing  less  than  has  been  done  could  have 
been  done,  and  the  Christian  church  have  re- 
mained really  Christian,  or  really  human,  and 
particularly  in  the  face  of  the  great  provi- 


[io8]  Hbc  mvinc  IRtQbt 

dential  changes  that  have  occurred  in  the 
mighty  East  within  the  past  half-century. 
The  reason  why  Christianity  could  not  have 
done  less  is  precisely  this :  That  when 
understood,  Christianity  has  in  it  such  ele- 
ments as  we  have  noted,  elements  in  them- 
selves of  untold  value,  and  universally  ap- 
plicable to  mankind.  Like  Paul,  its  great 
exponent,  it  holds  these  spiritual  values  in 
trust  for  others  who  are  in  need. 

To   recapitulate:    Christianity   holds   the 
supreme  conception  of  the  oneness  of  man- 
kind;   it  alone  cherishes  the 

IRecapitulatfon 

idea  of  a  redemptive  purpose 

— a  cure  for  sin — at  the  heart  of  God;  it 
places  a  premium  upon  the  faith  principle 
conceived  as  loyalty  to  present  light;  it  is 
the  one  religion  which  centers  in  a  unique 
divine-human  person;  it  alone  guarantees 
human  well-being  in  providence  irrespective 
of  outward,  circumstantial  conditions ;  and 
it  affords  the  only  practical  hope  of  god- 
like character  and  final  blessedness  Hke  his 
own. 


ot  flQtggtong [109] 

The  ideal  of  all  we  plead  for  is  concretely 
presented  in  the  New  Testament  picture  of 
our     Lord's     transfiguration.        moral 

This  transfiguration  is  really  'Cranafiguration 

^  ^        tbc  »beal 

the  archetypal   form   of   that 

characteristic  work  of  redemption  wherein 
mankind  and  all  that  belongs  to  him  are  to 
be  transformed  into  the  same  glory  which 
Christ  himself  exhibited  in  the  holy  mount. 
The  scene  is  best  understood  when  viewed 
in  contrast  with  another  scene,  viz.,  that  in 
the  plain,  just  following  it. 

Two  types  of  sonship  are  presented: 
That  of  Jesus  in  the  glory  ensuing  upon  his 
full  acceptance  of  his  impending  cross,  con- 
cerning which  the  Father,  speaking  right 
out  of  the  blue,  exclaimed :  "  This  is  my 
Son,  my  chosen  " — "  the  ideal  potentiality  I 
cherish  for  all  men,  what  I  mean  by  son- 
ship."  The  other  type  is  seen  in  the  child 
of  a  broken-hearted  earthly  father  whom 
the  disciples  through  default  in  prayer  had 
failed  to  heal.  This  was  a  son  of  the  natural 
man — the   limited  human   father — plus   all 


[no]    Ubc  5)iv>tne  TRtgbt 

the  damage  sin  and  the  demon  had  wrought 
in  him.  He  was  "  lunatic,"  torn  by  the 
spirit,  fallen  at  the  Saviour's  feet  **  as  one 
dead  " ;  he  "  wallowed,  foaming."  There 
he  lay,  a  devil's  masterpiece — sin  in  the 
death-process.  The  acme  of  distress  ut- 
tered itself  in  the  father's  cry :  "  I  beseech 
thee,  look  upon  my  son ;  for  he  is  mine  only 
child  " — literally,  mine  **  only  begotten  "  ; 
the  same  word  that  describes  the  relation 
of  Jesus  to  his  Father.  How  different  the 
fatherhoods,  and  how  unlike  the  sonships,  in 
these  contrasting  pictures!  Now,  all  this 
may  be  regarded  as  a  dramatization  of  the 
task  of  Christ's  successors  in  this  sinful 
world.  This  task  is  naught  less  than  to  take 
human  souls  stricken  and  damaged  by  sin, 
and  to  begin  to  transfigure  them — to  change 
them  from  prostrate,  sin-cursed,  earthly  son- 
ship  to  radiant,  glorified,  heavenly  sonship 
like  Christ's  own,  idealized  in  that  mount. 
This  transfiguration  was  not  for  Christ 
alone.  He  is  but  "  the  firstborn  of  many 
brethren."    The  transfiguration  was  for  all 


ot  flUtggtong [ill] 

men  and  for  all  theirs.  It  is  for  the  poor 
Indian  fakir,  the  crazed  superstitious  Chi- 
nese Boxer,  the  gross  South  Sea  cannibal, 
the  barbarous  African  savage,  and  the  just 
as  needy,  though  poHshed,  Anglo-Saxon 
agnostic.  This  transfiguration  amounts  to 
salvation — Christian  salvation,  the  only  sal- 
vation worthy  of  God  and  of  ourselves. 
Moreover,  this  salvation  can  never  be  ade- 
quately known  or  consciously  realized  apart 
from  that  wisdom  and  power  which  are 
lodged  in  the  cross  of  Christ  and  its  gos- 
pel. To  bring  such  a  salvation  to  men  the 
Christian  church  not  only  has  the  right,  but 
is  bound,  in  the  appropriate  "  times  and  sea- 
sons," to  go  everywhere  upon  this  planet 
where  the  Redeemer  himself  would  come. 
This  warrant  and  duty  are  the  charter  of  the 
Christian  church;  the  right  to  love  where 
others  hate,  to  cherish  where  others  neglect, 
to  bless  where  others  curse,  to  offer  felicity 
in  this  world  and  the  world  to  come  where 
others  consign  to  darkness  and  despair. 
This  is  the  right  divine,  the  redemptive  right 


[112] Zbc  WMnc  TRtQbt 

to  communicate  the  grace  of  Christian  mis- 
sions. There  is  then  a  divine  right  of  mis- 
sions; and  if  so,  a  human  right  also  to 
propagate  them,  as  the  human  right  becomes 
conformed  to  the  divine. 


itpl 


of  fnii00ion0  [113] 


appenbix 

BxtraorMnarp  Bborigtnal 
XTraMttona 

X  HE  day  we  received  the  first  Muhso  for 
baptism,  two  teachers  of  this  tribe  from 
China,  together  with  about  sixty  followers, 
came  to  the  compound.  They  said :  "  We 
have  been  traveling  for  fourteen  years 
preaching  to  the  Muhsos  to  turn  from  all 
evil  and  follow  after  righteousness,  be- 
cause the  true  God  is  coming  soon."  ^  They 
said  they  had  been  searching  for  the  true 
God  for  years,  and  had  just  found  him. 
Five  days  later  another  Muhso  teacher  came 
with  a  large  following,  and  the  first  two  men 
came  back  also.  The  interest  was  most  pro- 
found. The  people  seemed  intensely  in  ear- 
nest and  every  one  professed  to  believe  fully 


*  Extract  from  a  report  from  Rev.  W.  M.  Young, 
missionary  of  the  American  Baptist  Missionary  Union. 
Kengtung,  Burma. 

H 


[ih]  HppenMx 

the  message  that  we  gave  them.  They  then 
told  us  the  Muhso  traditions.  They  are 
very  similar  to  the  Karen  traditions,  and  in 
some  respects  they  are  even  clearer.  Their 
account  of  the  creation,  the  fall,  and  the 
flood,  corresponds  very  closely  with  the 
biblical  account ;  and  their  teaching  against 
evil-doing  corresponds  with  remarkable  ac- 
curacy to  the  Ten  Commandments  of  the 
Mosaic  law.  They  give  more  precepts,  but 
the  teaching  is  almost  identical;  they  say 
God  once  dwelt  among  men,  that  he  has 
gone  away,  but  that  he  is  coming  again,  and 
those  who  refuse  to  receive  his  truth  will  be 
cast  into  hell,  Ma  Na  Hok,  when  he  comes. 
The  belief  seems  well-nigh  universal  among 
them  that  the  foreigner  would  bring  them 
the  knowledge  of  the  true  God,  and  there 
is  an  intense  longing  on  the  part  of  many  for 
such  a  revelation. 

About  six  years  ago  they  began  to  build 
small  chapels  in  which  they  met  on  new  and 
full  moons  to  worship,  and  these  are  now 
found  in  hundreds  of  towns.  TheMuhsos  had 


HppenMi [i^s] 

certain  paper  offerings  and  paper  streamers, 
offerings  of  popped  rice,  the  burning  of 
tapers,  etc.,  which  they  said  indicated  two 
things :  that  they  implored  the  protection  of 
God,  and  also  expressed  the  longing  of  their 
hearts  for  a  knowledge  of  the  true  God. 
They  said  the  foreigner  would  soon  come 
to  teach  them.  They  also  wore  cotton  cords 
about  their  wrists  and  in  some  cases  about 
the  neck.  These  were,  first,  a  pledge  that 
they  would  not  forsake  the  Muhso  customs 
of  belief  in  one  God,  or  drink  liquor,  or  fol- 
low after  any  evil ;  and,  secondly,  the  cords 
expressed  the  longing  that  the  foreigner 
would  come  and  teach  them  the  knowledge 
of  the  true  God,  and  then  he  would  cut  them 
from  their  wrists.  When  I  visited  the  first 
villages  where  they  had  the  chapels,  they 
voluntarily  carried  all  the  offerings  out,  say- 
ing :  **  We  have  now  found  the  true  God 
and  have  no  further  need  of  these."  The 
Muhso  teacher  came  to  me  in  the  presence 
of  all  the  people  of  the  village  and  said: 
"  We  have  now  found  the  true  God ;    you 


C"6]  HppenMx 

cut  these  cords  from  my  wrists."  I  did  so, 
and  every  person  in  the  village  came  at  once 
and  I  cut  all  their  cords.  That  meant  a 
complete  break  from  the  past  customs,  and  a 
full  and  complete  acceptance  of  the  new 
teaching.  They  accepted  every  Christian 
precept  that  I  presented  to  them ;  and  then, 
after  a  unanimous  vote,  we  held  a  formal 
service  dedicating  the  chapel  to  the  Lord. 
Since  then  I  have  cut  the  cords  from  the 
wrists  of  hundreds  of  people. 

Some  things  are  very  remarkable  about 
these  simple  mountain  people.  They  are 
pure  monotheists  and  do  not  believe  in 
or  make  offerings  to  evil  spirits;  they  are 
less  bound  by  superstitions  than  any  other 
tribe  of  Burma;  in  some  sections  they  are 
addicted  to  drunkenness,  but  this  is  strictly 
forbidden  by  their  tribal  customs ;  they  are 
pure  monogamists,  polygamy  not  being  tol- 
erated. Some  say  they  would  punish  a  polyg- 
amist  or  bigamist  with  death,  while  others 
say  he  would  be  driven  from  the  village. 
My  Karen  helpers  say  the  Muhsos  will  make 


HppenMi [1173 

better  Christians  than  the  Karens  because 
of  this  freedom  from  superstitions ;  and  then 
they  are  naturally  of  a  more  teachable  spirit. 
It  is  certain  that  this  Muhso  population 
is  much  larger,  probably  several  times 
larger,  in  China  than  in  Kentung.  I  have 
the  names  of  eighteen  local  States  in  China 
where  the  Muhsos  and  Kwes  dwell,  some  of 
which  States  it  is  said,  are  larger  than 
Kengtung.  It  gives  an  immense  field  for 
work,  which  undoubtedly  must  be  enlarged 
to  the  north  and  northeast  as  soon  as  possi- 
ble, since  it  is  certain  now  that  thousands 
will  accept  Christ  as  soon  as  the  gospel  can 
be  clearly  presented  to  them. 


Princeton  Theoloqical  Seminary   Libraries 


1    1012  01234  3721 


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